


The Ineffable Bride

by ZehWulf



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Action & Romance, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Princess Bride Fusion, Asexual Aziraphale (Good Omens), Asexual Crowley (Good Omens), Asexual Relationship, Crowley has multiple sets of pronouns, Fake Character Death, Female Aziraphale (Good Omens), Forced Relationship, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Implied/Referenced Torture, Infidelity, Minor Character Death, Multi, Non-Graphic Violence, Temporary Character Death, True Love, in that Gabriel threatens Aziraphale with death if she doesn't agree to be his bride of convenience, non-graphic depictions of torture, they're both sex-neutral asexual (which is relevant to note for the forced relationship tag above), what with the fake death and forced relationship Aziraphale is having A Time and is doing her best, when we get to The Pit of Despair
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:07:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27137069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZehWulf/pseuds/ZehWulf
Summary: "The Princess Bride" retelling with Good Omens characters that no one really asked for but I decided to write anyway.
Relationships: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Gabriel (Good Omens), Sergeant Shadwell/Madame Tracy (Good Omens)
Comments: 146
Kudos: 69





	1. Aziraphale & Crowley

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my first ever real actual WIP! _(internal screaming!)_ This is about... 50% written already. I'll try to keep to a chapter-a-week schedule so we can stay consistent, but I don't want to overpromise. :') 
> 
> This fusion draws heavily on both "The Princess Bride" movie and book canon (while cheerfully ignoring a lot of elements I've never liked in either) and then throws in the GO characters and a bunch of attendant GO TV series and book canon. I hope what I've got here is familiar enough to be delightful but with enough twists to not get boring.
> 
> There are a lot of potentially heavy/upsetting elements in "The Princess Bride" source materials that are handled glibly and/or in a PG-13 way by both the book and movie. I promise this won't get any darker than either, but I've done my best to tag for all the major stuff up front, and I'll include additional details per chapter in notes (spoiler-free at the top and spoiler-y at the bottom) when we get around to things. I'll also probably add additional tags as we get further into the story, and I'll flag those in notes as well. :)
> 
> Crowley is depicted as genderfluid in this story and will be using multiple pronouns. We won't get into details in the narrative for awhile since most of the early parts are not in Crowley's POV, but as a short summary: Crowley primarily leans male but it fluctuates, mostly dresses in male-coded fashions (but with sneaky femme details, as in the GO TV canon), and is typically unbothered when strangers use he/him pronouns for him even when he's feeling more female or agender or flux. However, he will and does let people he's closer to know when his gender shifts and will request updated pronouns when desired. So, you will see Aziraphale (whose POV is most prominent early on) shift between pronouns for Crowley once they become closer and occasionally have to pivot if she's operating under outdated information. As a cis woman who suspects she might be agender, I'm not considering myself an expert in the genderfluid experience (though I've been doing a lot of research and reading first-hand experiences). I'm doing my best to depict an individual experience, largely informed by but certainly not completely faithful to GO TV show canon, but please let me know in comments if I make any huge goofs or need more tags or content warnings in notes!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Props to Karissa from the GO Events server for betaing this first chapter! And credit to [skimmingthesurface](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skimmingthesurface/pseuds/skimmingthesurface) for the inspiration to use the Chattering Order of St. Beryl as the story framing device.
> 
>  **Content Warning(s) for this chapter (see end notes for more details):** Fake Character Death that looks like a Major Character Death to another Major Character

When Sister Mary Loquacious finished opening the package and squealed with unfettered glee, Sister Theresa Garrulous briefly closed her eyes and prayed to Satan for the fortitude to hold off killing her roommate until she could complete a proper cover-up plan. Mother Superior would be very cross if she summoned boffins to the convent _without_ malice aforethought.

"What have you got?" she asked as she turned down her bed for the night. Sometimes it helped if she took charge of the conversation from the start.

"Oh, Sister Theresa, my mum sent me an early birthday present, and you'll never guess what she included! Oh, never, because I can't remember that I've told you about my favorite book before, but that's just what it is! My favorite book! I lost my last copy, you see, on a bus in uni, and with one thing and another, His Dark Lord's calling and all that, I never got round to picking another copy up. But the other week on our call I said to my mum, I said—"

"That you would like to read it again, and she's sent you a copy," Theresa cut in. "How thoughtful of her. Well, I'm to bed. Goodnight." The full stop was very audible.

Theresa glanced over across the small aisle where their two bedside tables abutted to where Mary was sitting cross legged on her bed in her cotton pajama set,[1] book clutched rapturously to her chest. Mary caught the glance like a shark scenting blood.

"So soon? But lights out isn't for another hour!" she exclaimed.

"I'm tired. Put in a full day of wickedness," Theresa said shortly and got settled in under the covers, pointedly turning her back to the other woman.

"Oh, well, I hope you don't mind my reading aloud. I don't think I can bear waiting for a reread. And you know what Himself says about denying oneself an indulgence!"

Theresa clenched her jaw so tight, Himself probably winced at the net effect on her enamel. "Of course I don't mind," she forced out through the grit of her teeth. "We're a chattering order."

Mary tittered, and there was the sound of cloth rustling as she got under her own covers. "Too right, Sister, too right. Can't have us silencing each other—why that would be practically sacrilegious! Well, I'll just be the hour, and then lights out, of course."

"Yes," Theresa bit out, thankful that at least Mary had turned out her bedside lamp and was reading from a smaller booklight. With any luck, she'd be able to tune out Mary's voice like whitenoise—Hell knew she had enough practice for that during the day—and between that and the near darkness of the room be able to escape into unconsciousness.

"But I do think you'll like this one," Mary chattered on, oblivious. "It's a wonderful story full of all sorts Himself would approve of: Kidnapping, fencing, fighting, torture, poison, true love, hate, revenge, bad men, pain, warmongering, death, chases, escapes, lies."

Despite herself, Theresa felt her eyes pop back open. "What was that one in the middle?" she asked suspiciously.

Sister Mary shifted on her bed. "What, torture? Hate?" she asked, voice a little high pitched.

"You said 'true love,'" Theresa said, and got up on her elbow so she could cast an appropriately disapproving glower back over her shoulder. Mary met her gaze wide eyed, smiling nervously. "Is this a romance book?" she asked with all the crushing disapproval at her disposal, which was rather a lot. She was a nun, even if a satanic one.

"Well… yes? But all the rest is in there too!" Mary rushed to say. "And isn't it a bit subversive to enjoy a nice romance? A bit naughty for a satanic nun, isn't it?" she parried tentatively.

Theresa glared at her a moment longer before rolling her eyes and collapsing back onto her pillow. Honestly, Mary's point was as weak as sacramental wine, but this also wasn't near big enough a transgression to get her booted from the order, so it wasn't worth Theresa's energy to care.

"Go on, then, if you must. I make no promises about keeping awake."

Mary breathed out a long breath in obvious relief, which Theresa felt a prick of spiteful glee over and nursed close to her bosom.

"You're a ripe apple, you are, Theresa," she said warmly, much to Theresa's visceral chagrin. "Well, here we go!"

And she cleared her throat and began.

.

.

.

Aziraphale was born in a bustling town a day's ride from the royal seat of Florin. Her parents, upon realizing that her soft, flyaway curls resisted all attempts at being tamed into glossy ringlets and that her predilection for modest partlets with "darling" little ruffs wasn't an unfortunate adolescent phase did the only sensible thing they could and sponsored her enrollment in the city's university.

It was there that Aziraphale fell in love.

She was smitten at first sight: the lithe form, the black cloth, the gold and red detailing, the dry wit framing a heart of tender affections…

She hadn't read much fiction beyond the great classics of yore before gaining access to the university's impressive library, never mind a romance novel. But from the moment she'd first cracked the cover of "The Devil's Cub" to when she'd turned the last page with a sigh, she'd found herself tumbling headlong from fascination to steadfast devotion. When she wasn't learning how to properly conjugate her Latin, debate moral philosophy, or Euclideate her geometry, she could reliably be found tucked in a nook reading something delicious.

( _"Well that's something, at least," Theresa found herself saying. "At least she's not got her head in the clouds about some boy. Knowledge! That's right and proper for a woman set on an infernal path."_

_"Oh, um, well," Mary said._ )

She read so much, between her studies and for pleasure, that within a year into her life at the university she was determined never to leave its sumptuous variety of libraries. However, since her parents weren't willing to sponsor her indefinitely, that meant she was going to have to make a _career_ out of it. A career, unfortunately, meant proving to other people that you were just as good at research as you thought yourself to be—good enough to be paid for it. And a career at this particular university, which Aziraphale loved to bits but was _very_ posh, was quite an ambitious goal indeed.

With such a love of books, she didn't think she would have noticed Crowley except that he always seemed to be underfoot: slouched at the end of the bench at one of the long tables in the center of the main library, leaning against a bookshelf in the exact section of the smaller prophecies library she needed to search, sprawled under a tree on the lawn just outside of whatever lecture hall she was leaving. If she didn't know better, she would think he was stalking her, except he never seemed to notice her beyond the occasional nod of acknowledgement—not that it was easy to tell with the dark glasses he always wore.

And she didn't think she would have found him so vexing except that whenever he turned up, he was conspicuously without work or care: flipping idly through a book, picking at a snack, staring into space, or outright napping. She could count on one hand the number of times she saw a professor or other faculty member approach him and thrust a scroll or letter of what appeared to be instructions at him. After some time, she reasoned that he must be a page who specialized in avoiding work. It was a stark contrast to her own experience, which was stuffed to the brim with research and lectures and papers and pressure, and she wasn't even getting _paid_ for any of it yet.

So, one day, when she nearly slammed full into Crowley when hurrying around the corner of a bookshelf as she raced a deadline to finish a treatise, she'd shoved her tower of books into his chest and said a little manically, "If you're always going to be lurking about, you could at least make yourself useful."

He'd merely arched his eyebrows high over his glasses and murmured, "As you wish." Aziraphale had narrowed her eyes at him, sure he was mocking her, but he'd waited patiently until she'd squeezed past him and then followed her back to her study table with a hip-swinging saunter.

This established a new pattern. Anytime Aziraphale noticed Crowley being aggressively indolent near her, she would fix him with a suspicious stink eye and demand a small favor in return for distracting her from her studies.

"Page boy, I am _trying_ to complete this paper. Instead of looming there like a gargoyle, why don't you bring me a fresh cup of cocoa, hm?"

"As you wish."

"Oh, _must_ you crunch that apple so loudly? It's making me peckish. Oh, do share some of your nibbles with me, please, page boy? If I get up that awful Robbins is going to swoop in and snatch this volume away for his own, and I need it for at least the rest of the day."

"As you wish."

"Page boy, you know the gardens well, do you not? I need to make a poultice for my medical practical, and I am quite worried I won't be able to match the illustrations from this treatise to the real thing. You will help me, won't you?"

"As you wish."

For months it went on this way: Crowley would slink into the periphery of her vision and loiter until she found some task or request for him to fulfill, which he'd unfailingly do with that single mumbled phrase, and then he'd saunter away without a word.

( _"He's a good servant, at least," Theresa said stoutly. "Knows his place in the order of things. And Aziraphale is getting to bad work grinding him under her heel."_

_Mary tittered nervously._ )

The most intolerable thing about it, Aziraphale decided, was that his presence was steadily growing on her, like a red-tinted mold. Now, when she entered a room she sometimes found herself looking about for a glimpse of lanky limbs and a riot of red hair. She even found herself letting him linger longer and longer in her presence before naming the errand that would inevitably spell the end of his visit. His presence had become almost _restful_ , which was _irritating_ when she noticed it.

( _"Satan preserve me," Theresa grumbled._ )

It could have kept on like that, the little arrangement that had formed between them, indefinitely, except that one day Aziraphale was feeling particularly fractious between the surly weather, the dregs of a cold stopping up her sinuses something dreadful, and the complete dead end she'd come to in her research. So fractious, in fact, that Crowley's lurking had swung right back round from soothing to annoying, and Aziraphale snapped.

"My dear fellow," she snipped, snippily, "I simply cannot abide your hovering like a great buzzard today, and I don't have energy to think up some silly task, so would you please just come here and _sit_?"

Crowley, who'd been slouched against the edge of the bookshelf nearest the table she was working at, flipping through an illustrated book on astronomy, stiffened in surprise. He looked down at her, glasses slipping down his beak of a nose so far she was almost able to catch a glimpse of his mysterious eyes.

"Er… as you wish?" he stuttered, and then stumbled over and sat down beside her on the long bench like a marionette with its strings cut.

"Thank you," Aziraphale said with exaggerated politeness, even as she flushed lightly at realizing there wasn't much sense in either her actions or words.

Crowley pushed his glasses back up securely and pressed his mouth into a nervous, flat line. "And it's 'dear lady' today."

Aziraphale blinked rapidly as her brain struggled to comprehend the seeming non sequitur. "Lady?" she echoed.

Crowley nodded.

"...today?"

"Yep. Would have been 'dear fellow' yesterday, and could be again tomorrow, but, uh, it's 'dear lady' today." Crowley bared her teeth in a wince of a smile.

Aziraphale thought about this for a moment. "Are those the only two? Signifiers, I mean, of course. Or are there others I should know of? 'Dear one' perhaps? Oh, but that does sound rather intimate doesn't it." She waved away the idea with an impatient flap of her hand and fixed her companion with a stern look.

Crowley stared at her for a long moment, mouth parted in mute surprise, before she smirked. "Could just call me by my name," she suggested on a drawl.

Aziraphale rolled her eyes. "Well, that would hardly suit our dynamic, now, would it?"

Crowley propped an elbow on the table and put her chin in her hand, head angled toward Aziraphale with a mischievous grin. "Could do. You're the one who upset the applecart today, you know. I was just minding my own business—"

" _Looming_."

"—looking at a book. Didn't have to invite me to sit. Didn't have to call me 'my dear' anything," Crowley pointed out in a far-too reasonable tone.

Aziraphale refused to acknowledge the heat creeping up her neck as a blush. "Oh! I am not going to explain myself to the likes of you. Now, you _will_ tell me your preferred pronouns from now on, _Crowley_. I simply won't permit you to let me be so rude as to misgender you."

Much to Aziraphale's consternation, Crowley threw her head back and cackled.

"Rude!" Crowley hooted. "Heaven forbid. Ordering me about, calling me a page, turning your prissy little nose up at me every turn. But you draw the line at misgendering. Can't have that." She settled back down into an amused smirk, long fingers drumming a jaunty rhythm on the tabletop.

Aziraphale shifted uncomfortably. "Well," she said, feeling wrong-footed to hear her poor behavior called out so plainly, "it does feel a step too far, doesn't it? Rather mean, in fact. And I've never wanted…" She sighed gustily. "While I do find you extremely vexing, I wouldn't ever wish to be cruel to you."

Crowley's smirk softened. "No, course not. Wouldn't have sat down, much less kept looming, if I thought you would be."

"Why have you kept looming so long, when I've been so rude?" Aziraphale asked after a long moment, still unable to tear her eyes away from the woman sitting so close after so long.

She felt Crowley gently tap her foot with her own beneath the table. "Why do you think?" Crowley murmured, grin once again taking on a devilish slant.

Aziraphale scoffed and finally forced herself to turn away and fix her eyes back on her book. But she couldn't quite help adding, "You are quite the wit, now that you've finally deigned to speak to me properly."

"Hmm," Crowley agreed, and shrugged innocently when Aziraphale skewered her with a glare out of the corner of her eye.

"Now that I know you can carry on a conversation, I hope you know I'll expect you to greet me and engage in all due civilities in future," she said with a sniff, turning a page of her book even though she hadn't absorbed one word. It was the look of the thing that was important at the moment.

"Say 'hi,' give you my pronouns, comment on the weather," Crowley ticked off on her fingers. Then she leaned sideways over the table until she encroached on Aziraphale's field of vision. Kept leaning, in fact, until Aziraphale gave up and looked over at her. Crowley held an obvious laugh behind her pressed mouth, long hair flopping about ridiculously and glasses slipping with the absurd angle.

Aziraphale raised her eyebrows in mute, irritated question.

"As you wish," Crowley said mock seriously, and then beamed so wide Aziraphale discovered she had dimples.

Aziraphale huffed and had to turn away completely for a moment, sure her face must have rivaled the hue of the apples Crowley was always bringing about to snack on. For in that moment, she'd had an attack of clarity, and was amazed to discover that when Crowley was saying "as you wish," what she meant was, "I love you."

( _"Now, isn't that a lovely beginning?" Mary sighed._

_"It's very Good," Theresa said repressively._

_"Oh, I'm so glad you like it! I'll be sure to pick up again tomorrow. Oh, this will be such fun!" Mary enthused._

_Theresa sighed the sigh of the martyr._ )

.

.

.

Aziraphale wrestled with her feelings mightily in the weeks immediately following her revelation.

First, because Crowley was, in all possible definitions, a pest. Invading the quiet spaces on the campus she liked to retreat to and making them vibrate with his presence until she was bound to look at him if only to make the humming resolve to a clear note. Plaguing her thoughts so that even when he wasn't around she was haunted by his absence. And now that she had invited him to speak, truly speak, once, he _would not stop_. Always, questions!

"What are you studying for, anyway? What does an archivist and researcher do? Does it pay well? Well, you don't plan to live with your parents forever, do you? How else will you pay for those fancy wines you favor? Who is your favorite vintner, by the way? And where do you like to drink your wine best? On a picnic? Under the stars? In company, maybe?"

She was meant to be girding her mind to embark on a great profession in books and research, a guardian and steward of knowledge, which was very difficult to do with a Crowley draped halfway over the table so his long hair was in constant danger of ending up in her inkpot.

Second, because the revelation that Crowley was most likely in love with her seemed to lift some sort of veil that Aziraphale hadn't realized had been shielding her from the force of Crowley's quite vexing loveliness. His hair was red as ripe apples and lively as a hearth flame. He had a wide smile and made darling by the extra point to his eyeteeth. And certainly Aziraphale couldn't avoid noticing how fine and strong Crowley's hands were, with the frequency with which Aziraphale had to bat them away from mussing her research papers or the vanes of her goose quill pens. She did not allow herself to even think of Crowley's hips on the Lord's day for how nefarious their ellipticals were. Altogether, Crowley was suddenly and quite distressingly captivating.

And finally, third, Aziraphale wrestled with her feelings because points one and two compounded each other to such a degree that she found herself overwhelmed to the point of wondering how her conclusion that Crowley loved her could possibly be right at all. Surely a creature so lovely, so inquisitive, so alarmingly vivid in all ways could not possibly be attracted to Aziraphale.

Of course, Aziraphale knew herself to be quite intelligent and a fine wit when she put her mind to it, and predisposed to kind acts when she wasn't being deliberately goaded. She could even count herself lovely on days she could be bothered to remember to do her hair and pull together an outfit based on style rather than pure comfort. But these certainly weren't qualities that Crowley could have seen before now! For to be sure, on reflection, Aziraphale couldn't credit her behavior toward Crowley as more than standoffish at best and embarrassingly rude at worst. And she couldn't remember the last time she'd put in an effort over her physical presentation.

So, really, it was all quite impossible, she decided, that Crowley could possibly love her.

And yet, day after day, week after week, Crowley invariably turned up like it was his job to keep her in company and questions and tea and snacks and books from the shelf that was just high enough that his scant height difference meant he could fetch them without straining something vital.

"What do you do, if you aren't a page boy?" she asked him one day, pulled from the middle of her thesis because the mystery had been hounding her for several days and she wasn't sure she could finish her work without knowing.

Crowley stared at her from behind his dark glasses for a long moment before making some vague noises and settling on, "I work in administration. And, uh, acquisitions."

She narrowed her eyes at him, not sure exactly what in those assertions was suspicious, but by now recognizing the warble he got in his voice when he was being shifty.

"Is it a very official job?" she asked pointedly.

"I very officially receive money for it, so I'd say so," he said airily, practically oozing off the bench beside her in his effort to appear nonchalant.

"Then how is it you have so much time to pester me?" she pressed, focusing her eyes and fingers on the job of preening the vane of the latest quill Crowley had been messing with.

Crowley, the menace, made a knowing-sounding noise deep in his throat and reached over to gently grip the puffed sleeve of her gown between his thumb and forefinger.

"I make time," he said simply, and tugged insistently on that little point of fabric until Aziraphale was goaded into looking over at his face.

When she did, he gave her about as besotted a look as is possible to give when your eyes are hidden by tinted glasses. Something in the tiny lift of his eyebrows, the soft set of his mouth, she thought. It was a look that stirred her heart more rapturously than a hundred books with a thousand stories between them. It was a thesis in itself, and one that she found she didn't need any further arguments to believe absolutely.

"Oh," she said, and realized when she did that what she meant was, "I love you too."

It was a revelation possibly more vexing than the first. Though, as she abruptly stood and clambered over the bench, she found she couldn't be too surprised by it. In hindsight, it was quite obvious it had been bubbling up from within her from some hidden well, waiting only for a final drop of affection to spill over and flood her quite completely.

But sitting at the long tables in the middle of the library was no place to discover you were quite as much in love with your bothersome friend as he was with you. So, she shook out her skirts and marched down an aisle of bookshelves that she knew housed some dreadfully boring texts that almost no one consulted. When she looked back, she found Crowley sitting straight and tense on the bench, watching her walk away with the keen attention of a bird unsure if its flockmate was merely wandering or signaling a migration.

"Come along, Crowley, I need your assistance," she said, pleased at how calm she sounded.

He scrambled upright and followed, trailing her down the aisle all the way to the end where the angle of the shelves and the time of day meant they were lightly curtained in shadow. Aziraphale stopped and put her back to the shelf nearest her. Crowley drifted to a halt before her, eyebrows raised high on his forehead in question.

"Crowley, be a dear and fetch me that book?" she said, tipping her eyes and head up briefly to indicate an unspecified volume on the shelf above her head.

Crowley stared at her a moment, stock still, before he came back to life with a breath he seemed to summon from the very depths of the earth.

He took a slinking step forward into her space.

"This book here?" he asked quietly, so close her skirts brushed against his trousers and his words puffed against her lips. He raised his arm and put his hand to the spine of a book just above and to the side of her head and leaned. It was a brilliant lean, one that meant he had to angle and tilt his face to avoid the immediate collision of their mouths. Instead, he hovered, patient. Their chests pressed softly together with every shared inhale they took in the suspended moment.

"Yes," she murmured, daring to tip her face up a fraction so she was on the shivering edge of placing the word directly into his mouth but for the sliver of remaining distance between them.

"As you wish," Crowley whispered.

They kissed.

It was—

( _"Hold on, how graphic is this going to get," Theresa interrupted waspishly. "I'll not have any pornography before bed. Gives me indigestion."_

_"Oh!" Mary startled. "No, there's no pornography, Sister, never a fear."_

_"Then is it going to get soppy and lovey-dovey? That will do it too, you know. And I'm already settled in for the night. Look at me! All snug and tucked in. I wouldn't like to have to get up and fetch the antacids."_

_Mary pinked and looked down at the page. "Well…"_

_Theresa flapped an impatient hand at her. "Just skip to the next part, when they're done necking in the library."_

_Mary nodded wistfully and began turning pages, skipping past far more than Theresa thought credible if it_ weren't _a pornographic interlude, frankly._ )

Needless to say, Aziraphale didn't get much work done on her thesis the next few weeks. Between making calf eyes at Crowley, sneaking off into the stacks to trade disgustingly sweet kisses with Crowley, and taking long rambling walks in the university gardens with Crowley, there wasn't much time for research.

"Oh, these new ones are all quite dangerous, of course," she said one particularly fine evening toward the end of summer. With the arm not tucked securely into Crowley's, she waved a hand down the gravel path that led to the freshly installed beds of poisonous plants. "In the right doses, however, they can cause more good than harm. There's some fascinating medical research on the subject, though I confess I don't have the patience for the laboratory work required."

Crowley hummed in the way she'd come to learn meant the other woman was amused.

Aziraphale studied Crowley's smug profile with a narrow-eyed stare. "You already know about these plants, though, don't you, my dear," she guessed.

"Yep," Crowley confirmed with an obnoxiously cocky pop to the P.

"Acquisitions?"

"Acquisitions."

Aziraphale gave a mildly disapproving hum. Some of the plants were quite exotic, and must have been dangerous to come by. And while Crowley didn't speak with much detail about her work, Aziraphale had inferred from what little was shared that not only did it tend to be more thrill seeking than Aziraphale liked but also quite skirting the boundaries of both the law and good taste.

Crowley gave her hand where it rested on her arm a reassuring pat. "I can hear you giving me a lecture, you know. All packed in there with your little hems and haws and pursed lips and troubled brow."

"I do wish you'd tell me more—"

"Aziraphale, no," Crowley said, suddenly serious. She pulled them to a gentle stop and turned Aziraphale to face her, cupping her close by the elbows. "You're going to be petitioning to join the university soon. The less you know about what I do, the better. It can only get you in trouble with the wrong sort of people here."

"Well, then why do you do it at all, if it's so dangerous for me, and for _you_ ," Aziraphale countered, looking up into the opaque lenses of Crowley's glasses and only seeing her own worried face reflected back at her.

"That's part of what I wanted to talk to you about this evening," Crowley admitted and reached up to tuck a stray curl that had escaped Aziraphale's snood behind her ear.

"You're getting into a new line of work?" Aziraphale asked, feeling a surge of hope and then just as quickly a surge of fear. They'd both become quite accustomed to seeing each other about as often as they wished, after all. What if Crowley's new work took her away?

"Eh, well, yeah, eventually," Crowley said, chewing over a few vowels in the process and bobbling her head apologetically. "Got one last job to do. It's a big one. Big enough that I should have the money I need to set up a little shop of my own, buy a cottage…" She gave Aziraphale a tentative smile. "One big enough for two."

"Oh!" Aziraphale said, feeling a riot of emotion surge through her at the idea, at the implicit offer. "That does sound quite lovely. I'd… well, I'd quite like to see it."

"Yeah?"

"Yes," she said firmly. "Very much so. I have a feeling it will be quite charming. So charming that I wouldn't ever want to leave."

"Never?" Crowley murmured, leaning in to press her forehead gently to Aziraphale's.

"Not for as long as we both shall live, I should think," Aziraphale affirmed quietly and tipped her face up in invitation. Crowley was only too happy to oblige, and they got distracted for several minutes.

Eventually, though, Aziraphale's mind surfaced enough from the haze of tender feelings to ask, "What is the job, then?"

Crowley's expression transitioned from kiss-dumb to cagey so quickly that Aziraphale reared back within the cocoon of the other woman's arms in alarm.

"Crowley?" she asked, voice tripping up in pitch and hands gripping Crowley's biceps urgently.

"You know how you're always complaining you don't have enough first-hand accounts of America?" Crowley asked, voice altogether too pitchy to be tolerated.

"Crowley," Aziraphale said much more severely, shaking her a bit by the arms.

"I know! It's a long time—"

"It's _dangerous_. There are storms and pirates, and, and faulty compasses! Kraken, by some accounts!"

"Ngk, I'm sure the kraken are a myth," Crowley said, and tried for a reassuring grin when Aziraphale just glared at her. "Hey," she said, softer, and crowded close again to press little kisses to Aziraphale's cheeks and temples. "It'll be fine. I won't lie and say there isn't some risk, but this is the best way."

"The fastest way?" Aziraphale challenged and then scowled when Crowley grimaced. "Crowley, this could _destroy_ you. Please, there has to be something else. Something slower, perhaps, but safer? Closer?"

Crowley cupped Aziraphale's face in her hands then, thumbing the fragile skin below her eyes. "I've looked. Trust me, this is the best way. You should be concentrating on your thesis and your petition to join the university staff anyway. I bet you won't even notice I'm gone."

Aziraphale felt her eyes well up. "But what if something happens to you, and I never see you again?"

Crowley's face crumpled for a moment before she screwed it up into intense resolve. "No—no, no, no. Now, you listen to me. I love you, and you love me. And that's the strongest force in the world. It's a promise and a beacon and a magnet all in one. I'll come back to you, Aziraphale. I can't promise how long it will take, but I _will_ come back. Even if it takes me six thousand years and just as many miracles."

"We're not immortal, darling," Aziraphale said, but with a watery smile. It wasn't every day your dearest love made such a stirring declaration.

Crowley smirked. "There's supposed to be a fountain over there that grants everlasting life. I could find it for you, if you want."

"What good would that do me over here? Are you going to dabble in necromancy? Dearest, be reasonable."

They broke at the same time, snorting with laughter and clutching each other close.

Once the merriment had passed, they lingered in the embrace. Aziraphale spread her fingers as wide as she could and tried to memorize the contours of Crowley's back so that even if decades passed she might recognize her again just from the feel of her bones.

"I'll come for you. Always," Crowley promised softly, voice damp but fierce where it was muffled pressed against Aziraphale's shoulder.

"See that you do. If you take too long, I'll come after you, and I'll be _very_ cross when I find you."

Crowley left the following week, bound for London and a ship called the _Queen's Pride_. She wrote to Aziraphale often, letters full of ridiculous anecdotes about people she shared travel with, observations about the foreign lands she had to cross to get to England, and always, always, reminders of her love. "Tried a fantastically pungent cheese today that made me think of you—I love you. A man insisted on reciting poetry, out loud, the entire wagon trip today—I love you. The ducks here are _really_ great; I wish you could see them—I love you." Et cetera.

Aziraphale, for her part, threw herself into her studies. If Crowley was going to come back to her rich and prepared to set up a whole new life, Aziraphale wanted to be ready for it. As a respected professor, or even just a sought-after researcher or chronicler, she could cultivate all sorts of connections and influence that might help her love reestablish herself when she returned.

To that end, she began making more of an effort on all fronts. She put more care into how she presented herself, made a point of striking up acquaintanceships with other students, professors, and staff. She found that when it was on her own terms, she quite liked other people and was becoming a dab hand at small talk. When there wasn't common ground to be found in literature or science or philosophy or culinary delights, there was always Crowley. She could wax poetic about her love for days, given even the slightest excuse. And to the surprise of those around her, it wasn't even a bore to hear of the mythical almost-fiancé; Aziraphale's cheeks would flush too charmingly and her eyes sparkle too sincerely for anyone to feel anything but fondly wistful when she spoke of her love, since it was so obvious she loved Crowley so completely.

Which is why Crowley's death hit her the way it did.

( _"His_ what _?" Theresa shrieked._

_"Shh!" Mary hissed with a frantic wave of her hand._ )

She came back to her rooms one evening, some months after Crowley had left, to find a very official-looking letter pinned to her door. It was very dry and very short.

The _Queen's Pride_ had been attacked off the coast of Florida by the notorious Dread Pirate Anthony. There were no survivors.

Aziraphale had to read the letter, for all its brevity, nearly twenty-four times before the reality it was trying to impart sunk in.

Crowley's ship had been attacked.

Crowley's ship had no survivors.

Crowley was not coming back.

Crowley was dead.

Aziraphale, in a detached calm, carefully placed the letter into the fire. Then, she shut herself in her room and did not come out again for many days.

Some of her new friends came by and tried to lure her out with promises of comfort, of food, of drink to blot the hurt away. News of the attack had spread, in the way that all gossip about the exploits of the Dread Pirate Anthony—or Antonia, because nearly every detail of the pirate's identity was a tangle of speculation—seemed to do, and there were very few souls at the university at this point who did not know the name _Queen's Pride_ or what its destruction signified for one of the rising stars of the student body.

But Aziraphale did not come out. And any who pressed their ear to the door couldn't hear any wailing or sobbing or angry recriminations against a foolhardy idiot who'd risked too much and lost the gamble.

When Aziraphale finally emerged, she was dry eyed and quiet. When she ventured down to one of the common rooms, a few of her friends tried to offer hugs and bring her tea, but she gently rebuffed them. "I can take care of myself, my dears," she said softly. "Please, do not trouble yourselves."

The placid smile made the room uneasy, as did the serene way Aziraphale prepared herself a cup of cocoa and settled into a chair. Overall, she looked just as well as she had before the news. Before she'd come down, she'd taken the same amount of care with her hair and her outfit as had become her habit since Crowley's departure. She was a trifle thinner, perhaps, and there was a depth to her eyes that hadn't been there before that hinted at a sucking whirlpool of devastation if one were to hold her gaze for too long, but that was all.

"You're all right?" one of her friends asked, taking some care to keep her tone free of judgment. Different people grieve in different ways, after all.

Aziraphale sipped her cocoa. "Of course," she said.

"You're sure?" another friend asked, making no attempt to hide his incredulity, which earned him several glares and one stomped toe for his trouble.

"Yes," Aziraphale replied. There was a very long pause. "But I must never love again."

She never did.

* * *

  


1 The set was cream colored with little cartoon devils chasing fleeing sheep with their pitchforks. Theresa had pointed out more than once that it fit the letter but not quite the spirit of the law of their order, what with how… adorable it was. But Mary would just giggle and say, "Oh, I'm so glad you agree!" which invariably caused Theresa to question what she was doing with her life, and that was a line of thinking that caused too much heartburn to be borne, so these days she endured the set's presence as a test of infernal fortitude. [return to text]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Spoilery content warning(s) for this chapter:** Fake Character Death is for Crowley's off-screen seeming murder by pirates. He is not, in fact, dead, but Aziraphale doesn't know this and is accordingly devastated.


	2. The Prince & The "Proposal"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [LeilaKalomi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeilaKalomi/pseuds/LeilaKalomi) for betaing this chapter!
> 
>  **Content Warning(s) for this chapter (see end notes for more details):** Forced relationship between Aziraphale and Prince Gabriel, of about the same caliber of the Princess Bride source materials. If you have any concerns or questions about what I mean by "same caliber," or how this interplays with the "Asexual Aziraphale" tag, please do read the more spoilery end note. (I don't think it's all that spoilery if you've already seen the movie and/or read the books, BUT I put it at the end just in case.)

"I thought you said this was a romance," Theresa said severely, folding back the covers on her narrow bed with precise, furious flicks of her wrist.

"There was plenty of romance in that first bit!" Mary protested. As Theresa stared at her, it gradually dawned on her that Sister Mary was desperately trying to hold back a grin.

"Oh, you saucy minx," she said, reluctantly impressed that Mary had held out long enough to get her knickers in such a twist. "What's the dramatic reveal, then? Does he show back up with a grave wound and a bitter soul in need of a woman's tender love to sweeten it again?"[2]

"I shan't tell you a thing. It would ruin the book if I gave away too much in the beginning. This is where it starts getting really good," Mary confided with a pleased shimmy of her shoulders.[3]

Theresa looked hellward in search of patience but felt a small smile betraying her. "All right, have it your way. What happens to Aziraphale now that she's heartbroken? Does she turn to vice and sin? Does she lose her faith in God?" she asks gleefully.

Mary looked at the book in her hands thoughtfully. "You know, I think she might be agnostic? There isn't much talk of God or His Lordship in either direction, to be honest."

Theresa rolled her eyes. "Cowards. Pick a side and be done with it, honestly."

Mary giggled and thumbed to the page they'd left off on. "Chapter two…"

.

.

.

Prince Gabriel was built like a statue of a Greek god if the sculptor's only exposure to the human form came from Greek sculpture itself: his jaw was just a little too square, the lines of his torso just a little too close to the classic ideals, and his brow a little too noble, such that he constantly looked like he was posing or preparing to throw a discus. However, since an air of regal superhumanism is considered a boon in the monarchy, people politely ignored the unaccountable urge they had to poke him to see if he was real when they saw him.

In any case, once he opened his mouth, the illusion of supreme beauty was quickly dispelled. Prince Gabriel's true superhuman ability was to make every word he spoke sound either patronizing, disingenuous, or both. But again, since these are largely accepted qualities in any blood-based, succession model of leadership, people likewise politely ignored the follow-up unaccountable urge they had to punch him in his perfect jaw when he spoke.

He wasn't in a hurry to be king. Even war, at which he excelled, came second in his affections. Everything came second in his affections.

Delegating was his love.

He loved everything about it: The fact that he had so much less work to do directly; that people felt beholden to him in the course of carrying out the duties he'd foisted on them; taking credit when things went well; laying blame when things didn't go well; and most of all, that as the prince of the realm any job he delegated, no matter how demeaning or ridiculous, was automatically considered an honor and so no one, ever, said no.

Truly, there was no greater joy than being able to pull someone aside, look them earnestly in the eye, and ask them to get him a new set of bespoke boots without providing any instruction or trivialities like measurements, and watch them pale and fall all over themselves in their haste so say, "Of course, my lord. Right away, my lord." At best, he got a new set of boots! At worst, he had an excuse to banish someone, which was always a great time. Nothing like a good proclamation of banishment to rile up the masses and reaffirm his authority.

Being king, however, came with a lot more direct responsibilities. He was expected to attend a lot more meetings, for a start, and he wouldn't be able to just put in an appearance at important events and then skip out early. There was no one up the chain to defer responsibility to any longer, either. The buck would literally stop with him. People might expect him to be _accountable_.

So, no, Prince Gabriel was in no rush to be king.

He was just wrapping up delegating his promise to his mother to fell a mighty stag in honor of her birthday to Uriel, Grand Master of the Hunt, when his most trusted advisor and chief delegate, Count Michael, approached.

"It will be done, my lord," Uriel said and, with a short nod of acknowledgement to the count, they strode from the room, leaving Gabriel and Michael alone together in Gabriel's office.

"Michael! Just who I was hoping to speak to," he crowed, stepping forward to honor her with a firm handclasp. He lowered his voice to deliciously conspiratorial. "How goes the Great Plan, hmm?"

Michael regarded him gravely. "My lord, I would like nothing more than to give you my report. But first, I have urgent news."

"Oh?"

"Your father has had his annual physical. I have the report."

"And?"

"He is dying."

Prince Gabriel's cheeks puffed up as he blew out a dramatic stream of air through pursed lips. "Huh. That means I'll have to get married."

Michael nodded. "Indeed, my lord."

Gabriel crossed to the nearest doorway and leaned against it with one graceful forearm above his head, his chin tilting down and other hand propped wearily on his hip, until his silhouette was the very epitome of noble dejection, begging to be cast in bronze.

"If there's anything I can do to help in these trying times, my lord," Count Michael said placidly, "of course, you have only to ask."

Prince Gabriel's head tipped up, and he favored the Count with a perfectly symmetrical smile. "I can always count on you, Michael." He straightened back up and clapped his hands together decisively. "How about this? You have your network, and you have the latest strategies for our Great Plan well in hand. Use the former to find me a wife that will be useful for the latter. I'll fulfill my obligations, and we'll have another piece for the game board. Two birds, one stone!"

Michael lifted one manicured eyebrow with mathematical precision. "Two birds, one wife."

"Ha! That's good." The prince chortled regally.

"I believe I have a candidate already in mind."

Gabriel frowned. "Already?" he asked a little petulantly. He'd just done quite a bit of work on this, and he wasn't ready for even more. Surely looking for wifely candidates would take a few weeks, at least. Hopefully a few months.

"My contacts at the university alerted me to her. I've had my eye on her for…some time, but I wasn't sure of the best approach. If you wouldn't mind an outing, my lord?"

Immediately, the prince's good humor was restored. Nothing delayed work like a good outing.

They rode the short distance from the capital to Padua and entered the university through private corridors to avoid the fuss that usually came with an official royal visit. Michael stopped a page in passing for a murmured conversation before leading the prince to a multistory library. They ascended to the second floor and drew abreast of one of the balconies overlooking the sprawling central research space, its two-story oculus bathing the occupants in diffuse afternoon sunlight.

Prince Gabriel spotted the woman in question straight out. She sat at the middle of one of the long tables, presiding over a group of other researchers as she lectured. Her white hair was carefully curled and coiffed, her outfit was of impeccable quality (if a decade or two out of date), her figure was lush, and her features, down to her alabaster skin and gently pinked cheeks, were positively cherubic. She looked like she'd been plucked straight from a chapel ceiling or a charming pastoral scene. While he couldn't discern what she was saying within the echo of the oculus, he could tell her tone was carefully modulated and gentle. Her elegantly manicured hands gesticulated in the air in front of her as she sketched out some theory or made some point, holding her followers spellbound.

"Well, she certainly looks the part," Prince Gabriel said, impressed despite himself. "But I'm assuming if you think she'll be useful for the Great Plan, she's more than just a pretty face?"

Michael hummed in agreement. "She's the leading expert in prophecies and other portentous texts, with a special interest in prophecies regarding the fates of Florin and Guilder."

Gabriel pivoted his whole body to face Michael's severe profile. "Are you saying she's able to translate the Nutter prophecies?"

"Not yet. But… she's very close, or so I'm assured." She smirked. "She's also quite heartbroken. Her fiancé was killed a few years ago, and she's sworn off love. I believe with the right incentives, she'd be amenable to the sort of businesslike arrangement you've expressed a preference for in the past."

Prince Gabriel lit up. "Excellent! They're always so clingy when they're in love. Always want me to be _doing_ things for them—personally!" He scoffed at this absurdity and then looked back down over the balcony. "She sounds perfect. Draw up an agreement and send her to me. I trust you to get the details right."

"Naturally, my lord."

Prince Gabriel laid a companionable hand on Count Michael's shoulder. Locating such an excellent candidate for his wife, and sorting his marriage problem within hours of raising it to him was truly stunning work, even by her typical, ruthlessly efficient standards. It was competence worthy of a shoulder grip.

"Thanks, champ," he said, as close to sincere as he ever got.

Michael smiled and bore the gesture gracefully.

.

.

.

A summons to see the Prince of Florin wasn't an honor one generally looked for. The kind of glory one might achieve in meeting his demands was closer to surviving being chucked into a coliseum with a hungry lion and a pointy stick than fulfilling a noble quest. Preparations typically included much girding of loins and patience.

"Oh, good lord," Aziraphale muttered sourly when she received hers. Nevertheless, she put on her best gown, asked a friend to help with her hair, and put in some practice on her courtly curtsey before setting out for the castle. There was nothing for it, after all. When one worked for an institution funded by the State, one didn't ignore a summons from one of its leaders. She was rather sure, in fact, that some of her recent funding had come directly from the prince's coffers (even if the grant had been signed by Count Michael).

When she arrived at the castle and showed her summons, she was ushered to an ostentatious office positively bursting with books. Her steps slowed as she entered, attention caught so thoroughly on the floor-to-ceiling shelves that she didn't even notice the prince until he pointedly cleared his throat. She startled and saw he was sitting at the far end of the room behind a behemoth of a desk. She dropped immediately into a curtsey. In her distracted state it wasn't nearly as proper as she'd practiced, which had a blush creeping up her cheeks. Unbeknownst to her, the prince found this charmingly plebeian enough to forgive her for not noticing him right off.

"Aziraphale, yes? Of the Principality family," Prince Gabriel said jovially and waved a hand for her to take a seat in one of the squat chairs in front of his desk. They were chairs chosen to ensure only people with freakishly long torsos might find their heads approaching level with the prince's.

"Yes, sire," Aziraphale agreed. She fought to keep her expression politely curious when she ended up roughly chin level with the top of the desk.

"Your family are guardians by trade as well as tradition, aren't they?" Gabriel asked with a grin. Count Michael had provided a short dossier earlier that morning with suggested talking points.

"Yes, sire."

"Great, great. Well, look, I won't beat around the bush with you," he said and spread his hands and arms open wide. "I need to get married, and you're the perfect candidate. So, congratulations! You're going to be a princess!"

( _"Oh, what a great twat," Theresa complained. "You call that a proposal?"_ )

Aziraphale stared at the prince in befuddlement long enough that the frozen smile on his face started to slip just slightly.

"My sincerest apologies, your highness," she managed after a moment, drawing on the vast stores of patience she'd been forced to develop in the years since transitioning from student to professor. She dredged up her most obsequious smile. "You honor me greatly with this… pronouncement, but I'm afraid I must decline."

Prince Gabriel's smile collapsed entirely into a wincing squint. "You really can't. I'm the prince of the land."

"And I am in nearly every way your humble subject," Aziraphale agreed earnestly, "except in this—so sorry. I simply cannot marry you."

Gabriel slumped back in his chair and frowned mightily. "But… you know it's treason to refuse, right? You'll be cast into fire."

Aziraphale stared him squarely in the eye and forced her smile to stay firmly in place. Prince Gabriel was by no means empathetic, but even he caught the tail edge of a wild, dark grief lurking in the woman's unnerving, changeable eyes.

"If you must." Her voice was terribly mild.

( _"All right, fine, I'm won over. I approve of this Aziraphale character," Theresa said grumpily._

_Sister Mary held the book close to her chest in a swoon. "Because she'd die rather than betray her love?"_

_"Pfft, because she's telling this wanker to piss off."_ )

Prodded by what Prince Gabriel chose to classify as restless energy rather than nerves, he leapt to his feet and rounded the desk. Aziraphale, who had been truthful when she declared she was dutiful in almost all ways, rose as custom required and faced him.

Gabriel clasped his hands together and shook them at her briefly, considering his words a bit before saying, "Look, I heard you lost your intended, so you're probably not eager to jump into another relationship. But let's look at the facts for a minute, hm?" He ticked items off on his fingers: "I'm a prince, and I'm a pretty nice guy. So far, so great! But marrying me also makes you a princess of the land! And, traditionally, where the sovereign leads, the consort guards and protects. Sounds right up a Principality's alley, am I right? And that's only scratching the surface of why you're the perfect candidate!"

He felt at this juncture it would be effective to deploy an earnest hand hold, so he scooped up one of Aziraphale's hands and sandwiched it between his own.

"When I heard you were the leading expert on prophecies about our land and our bitter rivals across the sea, I just knew you were the right person for this role." He raised a hand briefly to indicate the books behind him. "All these? Books of prophecy and sensitive records about the histories of Florin and Guilder—so sensitive that, by law, no one but the royal family and designated staff can access them. We haven't deciphered them all, but we know a war is coming and that we might not win it if we can't figure out the rest."

For the first time since she'd entered the room, a bright spark entered Aziraphale's eye.

Gotcha, Prince Gabriel thought.

He folded up his eyebrows into regal entreaty and went in for the kill. "You, though, Aziraphale Principality, could unravel these prophecies. Are you really going to tell me you'd rather be dead than to marry me and give our country a fighting chance?"

Aziraphale's head swam for a moment as she looked from Prince Gabriel's upsettingly symmetrical face to the shelves upon shelves of books. His words rang unavoidably true. She'd come across a few hints in her own studies, enough to know she'd never unravel it all without access to additional works. A war _was_ prophesied. And her family _was_ a line of guardians and protectors. Going back until the records flaked and warped, the stories varied whether the Principality in question guarded knowledge, or kingdoms, or peoples, but the theme was unwavering. She had thought her destiny was to guard knowledge, but perhaps...

Still, none of this changed a fundamental truth.

"My prince," she said, voice wavering, "marriage involves love, and that is not something at which I excel. I tried once, and it went quite badly. I am sworn never to love another."

Prince Gabriel let out a single, ringing "ha" of laughter. "Who said anything about love? Not me, I can tell you. Is that all you're worried about?" He chuckled warmly and brought up a finger to boop her on the nose. "Adorable! Look, I won't pretend like I won't need you to produce some heirs for me, but I'm sure we can work that out without having to bring _love_ into it. So, you can either marry me and be the richest and most powerful woman in a thousand miles and read all the books you like and win Florin the prophesied war with Guilder, and provide me a couple kids—" He waved this last bit off like it was no more trouble than cooking a turkey, which made Aziraphale's eyelid twitch. "—Or! You can die in terrible pain in the very near future. Choice is yours, sunshine."

Aziraphale stared up into his face—made quite punchable with the lingering echoes of his words hanging in the air—for a moment longer. There didn't seem to be much for it. Not with the implied charge to protect her country laid upon her.

And Crowley, she reminded herself, as she only had to do most weeks these days, was not ever coming back.

"I will never love you," she stated.

"I wouldn't want it if I had it," Prince Gabriel said in a moment of honesty so unaffected even he looked taken aback.

This, more than anything else, reassured Aziraphale.

"Then by all means, let us marry, and I will do my best to fulfill my duties."

.

.

.

"Well, bugger, just when I was starting to get properly hooked," Sister Theresa said as she thumped her mug of tea down decisively on the bedside table.

"Oh?" Sister Mary asked from the other bed, transparently doleful. "We were just about to get the bits with kidnapping."

Theresa squinted at her and then busied herself scooting down properly under the covers. "I guess this does set the stage for some good, old-fashioned adultery," she conceded. "I suppose I can stand another chapter."

* * *

  


2 Theresa didn't reflect on what this prediction might reveal about her own savviness with the romance genre, but Mary did, and for once she managed to keep her mouth wisely shut about it. [return to text]

3 Her pajamas today were printed all over with little rubber ducks painted up to look like devils. Morningstar _wept_. [return to text]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Spoilery content warning(s) for this chapter:** Like in the Princess Bride source material, the law of the land gives the prince the ability to choose whoever he wants for a spouse, and Prince Gabriel chooses Aziraphale for political reasons. I'm drawing extra detail from the book, though, in having Gabriel explicitly tell Aziraphale she'll be killed for treason if she refuses him. (I think the scene comes off more as black humor than outright dark, though? At least that's what I was going for...) While Gabriel does say that Aziraphale will be expected to produce heirs at some point in the future (which is why I specifically tagged that Aziraphale's flavor of asexuality is sex-neutral, not sex-repulsed--wanted to avoid even the specter of that particular type of trauma), the proposal is for an otherwise businesslike arrangement. I can already promise you this will hold up through the fic: Gabriel won't put any physical or romantic expectations on Aziraphale regarding their engagement beyond some publicly performative hand holding.


	3. The Announcement & The Kidnapping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [LeilaKalomi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeilaKalomi/pseuds/LeilaKalomi) for betaing this chapter and for offering to help beta for the rest of the fic! <3
> 
> Posting note: I've put a chapter count up for the fic as I've finished constructing a detailed outline through the end of the fic. :3 At this point, I've drafted through (most of) chapter seven. No promises on a more consistent posting schedule, though, as I don't want to overcommit Leila AND I have a few scheduled events coming up that might cut into working on this. ty for your patience!
> 
> **Content Warning(s) for this chapter (see end notes for more details):** GO TV canon-typical levels of emotional manipulation/abuse, mostly in reference (i.e., not on screen).

Aziraphale had expected her work on unraveling the room full of prophecies would begin from the moment their engagement was announced. She hadn't counted on becoming a princess-in-waiting being like applying for citizenship to an insufferably posh country. There was studying and training and yet more studying. There were _tests_. Luckily, Aziraphale was a competent student, and her family, while by no means upper-crust, was close enough that the lingo and customs weren't completely foreign to her.

Still, what with dancing lessons, riding lessons, fencing, archery, falconry, secret political histories, hosting tutorials, castle management, trend setting, troop management, defense strategies, and oodles and oodles of fittings for clothes so sumptuous she felt vague religious guilt, she found precious little time to read.

What with one thing and another, three years passed.

Within the first year and a half, she had eventually passed muster well enough for Prince Gabriel and Count Michael to start allowing her some time to delve into prophecy work, but it had only been in the past six months that the majority of her time was spent in researching rather than performing royal duties. It wasn't long enough to have fully cracked all the prophecies concerning the foretold war between Florin and Guilder, but it was enough to pique the nervous anxiety she'd been cultivating since formally stepping inside the castle walls.

Piqued enough, in fact, that she now spent nearly all her time ensconced in the grand study where she'd first met the prince. He'd seemed cheerful enough about letting her take it over, although she thought it was more to do with it allowing him to quietly set up shop in a newer, bigger study he'd had renovated than any sense of duty or even awkward affection. He'd only told his innermost circle about the move, which meant she was still receiving drop-ins from confused courtiers, messengers, and visiting dignitaries even three months later.

So, when the door groaned open that particular morning, she didn't bother looking up from the tome she was inspecting.

"He's not here," she said politely but firmly, "and I haven't the faintest where he might be, so I'd advise looking elsewhere, if you'd be so kind."

"He's on the balcony overlooking the great square," Count Michael said in clipped tones. "You're late."

Aziraphale jolted and then turned to judge the angle of the sun through the narrow windows. "Oh, _goodness_. My deepest apologies—I hadn't realized it had gotten so late." At times like this, she dearly missed the university, with its timekeepers and schedules and friends and colleagues who would come drag you up for a meal before you started gathering literal dust. In the castle, with its windows designed more for defense than sunlight, and with people generally happy to ignore her when she wasn't of immediate value or in need of a telling off, it was quite easy to get lost in her own head.

"A princess is always mindful of others," Michael said in a well-worn, sing-song cadence that immediately made sweat flush on Aziraphale's palms. "A princess is always gracious. It isn't very mindful _or_ gracious to leave your people, your _prince_ , waiting for you like this, I'm sure you'll agree."

Aziraphale gave her a twitchy smile. "Certainly," she said, because it was the only answer allowed.

She was already dressed. Had been fed, dressed, and coiffured since shortly after dawn, in fact, at the insistence of the small staff Count Michael had arranged to watch over her. It was important for her to be ready early, so she would be on time. She was forever making others wait, she was often scolded. So, she'd been readied hours in advance and then set in her study to cool her heels and told someone would come for her when it was time.

No one had come.

No one ever did.

But if she were to say to Michael, to anyone, "Why couldn't I be dressed just before the ceremony, so there wouldn't be so long a time between for me to get bored and inevitably caught up in research?" or maybe, "Why not put me in the little waiting room just off the balcony instead of insisting I stay in the study?" or even, "Well, bless it all, they keep _saying_ someone will come, and they never do, and you don't have timekeepers here—"

Well…

A princess is mindful. If she knows she'll get caught up if she reads, then perhaps she should take the time to quietly reflect on her instructions for the ceremony. She is so forgetful, after all.

A princess is dutiful. The royal family likes to use that room for a bit of privacy ahead of big addresses, and she's not quite family yet, is she?

A princess is self-reliant. The staff are all very busy with quite important things. She shouldn't need someone to come fetch her; she knows when the ceremony is.

Count Michael returned Aziraphale's poor attempt at a smile with a thin one of her own, the echo of past questions and oh-so logical rejoinders echoing loudly between them.

"Well, there is always next time," Michael allowed smoothly. "I am sure you'll get it right one day. Come along, then." She stood aside to let Aziraphale go ahead of her, eyebrows angled to convey her disappointment.

Aziraphale fought to keep her face serene as she passed.

A princess is unruffled.

.

.

.

The great square of Florin City was filled as never before, waiting for the formal presentation of Prince Gabriel's new bride-to-be, Princess Aziraphale Principality. The crowd had been forming for hours in advance, curious to see who the notoriously romance-shy prince had finally favored. Enough rumors had spread in advance—of her beauty, her association with the university, and her lineage as a Principality—that speculation was running a touch wild and no fewer than twenty percent of the crowd were placing bets on a literal angel descending onto the balcony.

An hour before noontime, Prince Gabriel waltzed onto the balcony and spread his arms wide with a pleased grin on his face. The droning of the crowd increased in pitch and agitation. Then, the king emerged. He leaned heavily on the queen's arm, but he had enough strength to spare his people a frail wave. The people, having visual confirmation that the king yet lived and therefore this ceremony wasn't about to become significantly more exciting, finally quieted down.

Prince Gabriel's smile turned even more statue-like as the whole scene played out.

"My people," he boomed, and then, placing a hand dramatically over his heart, "my beloveds, from whom we draw our strength… how are you all feeling today? Good? Yeah?"

The crowd cheered half-heartedly.

"Oh, come on!" Prince Gabriel said with manic cheer. "You can do better than that! Now, _how are you all feeling today?_ " He held out his arms wide, expectant.

This earned him a moderately more enthusiastic cheer, though there was a palpable feel that the masses were humoring him.

"Now that's more like it!" he said, powering through as though he'd received a standing ovation—to be fair, everyone _was_ standing. "Today is a day of celebration! I've found us the perfect princess for Florin. You may have heard already that my honored father's health isn't what it used to be." He leaned forward, held a hand up to the side of his mouth, and said with an overdone wince, "He is ninety-seven, so who can ask for more, am I right?" He leaned back and gave his father a big wink, which was met with a fond if vacant smile.

The crowd gave a few awkward chuckles. Someone coughed.

"So anyway," he said, turning back to the crowd, "soon our country is going to need a great many things, including an heir and a new guardian. What's more, Florin's five hundredth anniversary is in just three months! Isn't that exciting? To celebrate, I will, on that sundown, take for my wife the Princess Aziraphale Principality. You may not have heard of her before, but you will now!"

He pivoted and swung his arm back in a showman's gesture to the balcony doors. On cue, they swung open and revealed Aziraphale, resplendent in a cream and blue gown, soft curls framing her cherubic face.

A vast murmur swelled over the crowd before cresting into a few gasps and hesitant cheers as she moved to stand beside the prince on the balcony.

Aziraphale the princess far outstripped Aziraphale the university professor. Her soft loveliness, given depth by the tinge of grief that shadowed every smile, had been a strong foundation. But time and pressure had carved more deliberate definition, demarcations between strength and softness that made each more apparent in the contrast.

(" _Nothing to do with having a whole staff making her up each morning, then?" Sister Theresa said sarcastically._

_"Hush," Mary scolded.)_

And her white-blonde hair was just as ethereal, except that before she'd tended to it to herself or with the occasional help of a friend, and now she had five full-time hairdressers who managed things for her. Her skin was still wintry cream, but now, with two handmaidens assigned to each appendage and four for the rest of her, it actually, in certain lights, seemed to provide her with a gentle glow.

( _"Ha!"_

_"Yes, you're very clever. Now, shut it."_ )

Prince Gabriel took her hand in his and raised their clasped hands high, pointing at her with the other. He mugged a "can you believe it?" look. The crowd, jolted out of its assessing stupor, cheered wildly.

On a murmur, he said to Aziraphale, "OK, that's enough. Better to leave them wanting more."

Aziraphale kept a beatific smile affixed to her face and didn't resist when he turned them and started back inside the castle.

Once they were inside, however, she couldn't hold back. "Is that… is that all? But they've been waiting for so long. Since last night, you said. Shouldn't we go down and greet them? So they can get to know me better?"

Prince Gabriel chuckled. "Silly goose, we don't walk among commoners unless it's unavoidable."

"Oh, but I'm quite used to it," Aziraphale reassured him. "I don't think there's any harm, is there? Wouldn't it be, oh—" She racked her brain for one of the phrases he favored. "—wouldn't it be good public relations?"

Gabriel came to a halt and favored her with a surprised lift of his eyebrows. "Look at you! That's not a completely terrible idea." He wagged a considering finger at her. "I keep telling Michael you have a head for this stuff. If you keep applying yourself, we'll make a proper princess of you yet!" He chuckled to himself like he'd told a great joke, and Aziraphale forced the corners of her mouth to turn up in kind. The prince gave her a gentle chuck with his knuckles under the chin. "Go on, knock yourself out."

"Thank you, my prince," she said with a flawless curtsey.

Gabriel shooed her off, and she made her way down the stairs to the ground-level entrance to the great square.

When she stepped out, the crowd parted for her, which was a little disconcerting, but she didn't let it deter her. After a short pause that she did her best to play off as regal dramatics rather than anxious surprise, she made her way into the square.

Wherever she walked, people made way, the path opening up and closing again behind her like she was a bead of oil floating on water. She moved slowly among the people in this way for a while, smile tacked in place, alone for all that she was completely surrounded.

Then a young child of indeterminate age wriggled out from between two adults and breached the bubble. She stared, goggle-eyed, at Aziraphale.

"Hello," Aziraphale said, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. "What is your name?"

"Eve," she said. "Are you a real princess?"

"I suppose I must be, now that I'm to wed a prince," Aziraphale said agreeably.

"Blimey," the child said, impressed.

"Well, it was lovely to meet you, Eve," Aziraphale said and held out her hand to shake. "I look forward to being your princess and guardian."

Eve took her hand with wide-eyed glee, pumping it up and down with more enthusiasm than Aziraphale's joints really appreciated, but she kept her regal bearing through it.

The interaction popped the bubble. Soon, she was faced with a whole bevvy of well wishers and people who wanted to shake her hand or touch the sleeve of her silk gown or inexplicably have her kiss the forehead of their infant. She didn't find any of it quite sanitary, but she could feel a growing happiness building around her, the budding trust her new charges felt for her, their country's new protector.

Her perfectly fashioned smile soon stretched into a more heartfelt grin as she was gently led through the crowd, each person passing her along to meet the next. It was exhausting, but far more satisfying than anything else she'd accomplished in the past three years. And it felt a lot more like success than any of the royal skills she'd finally felt she'd mastered.

The people, for the most part, were instantly smitten. There were a few who were jealous, of her beauty or her station or any number of petty things. But for most, it was a refreshing change to have a member of royalty who it wasn't quite so unsettling to look at, and who seemed to genuinely mean the words that came out of her mouth, and who was physically there among them without looking like she'd stepped her slipper in something unfortunate.

Only one person in the great square didn't rush to try their hand at meeting the new princess in person. That one was hidden away in the furthest corner of the great square, in the highest building, lurking deep in the shadows.

The man in black stood, arms crossed and eerie snake-slitted eyes glowing from within the depths of a black mask and hood that obscured nearly all of his face. The only visible part of him amidst the unrelenting black was his tense jaw and the sneering curl of his mouth.

He watched the procession below with burning intensity, and his infernal gaze flashed, angry and sullen.

( _"A demon?" Sister Theresa asked, properly intrigued now. "Is Aziraphale going to be dragged off to Hell? Oh, that'd be a treat.")_

.

.

.

Aziraphale wasn't a particular fan of riding, but she _had_ become a fan in the preceding years of any and all excuses to get as far away from the castle and all its rules and posturing and nonsense as possible. Consequently, it was well known amongst the inhabitants of the castle that she was a devoted fan of regular solitary rides in the country to improve her constitution—even if it made Sandalphon, Master of the Guard, have absolute kittens every time she left without an escort. Secretly, that was part of the appeal.

That morning, she'd decoded a passage in the venerable Agnes Nutter's book of Nice and Accurate Prophecies so maddening that she'd immediately slammed the book shut and raced down to the stables for her horse.

With the ceremony out of the way, Count Michael and Prince Gabriel had both been pushing her to decode the last of the Nutter prophecies. Now, more than ever, she was convinced that war was inevitable, and quite imminently, without some sort of intervention. Certain signs pointed to Florin having the advantage if they struck decisively, putting Guilder on the back foot. It was a report Gabriel had gone so far as to give her a shoulder clasp for. She'd warned him, though, that there were still a handful of prophecies she'd not yet deciphered. One of them might yet spell doom, or hopefully a way to prevent the war altogether.

Gabriel wasn't concerned about these remaining what-ifs.

Count Michael had merely smiled cryptically and said she'd done well, and that the prince had matters well in hand.

So, when she'd reached one of the last passages in the book this morning and read, "Open thine eyes and rede, I do say, foolish principalitee, for thy doome is certain should the dread one fayl and thou dost not hold faythe that true love can conquer death twice over," she'd been quite ready to chuck the whole bloody book into the fire.

Though grasping the meaning of prophecies was an activity best done in hindsight, Aziraphale felt anyone who knew her circumstances would surely read that particular passage and agree it was like the old witch was determined to rub salt in a wound.

So, she rode hard enough that the stinging in her eyes could be excused by the biting wind and the challenge of keeping her seat riding sidesaddle could occupy her entire attention.

Near the end of the path she normally took, however, the trail was blocked by three curious individuals.

She pulled the reins of her horse and came to a stop abreast of them.

The man at the front of the trio smiled at her charmingly. "A word, my lady?" he beseeched in a fine voice as he sketched a bow.

"Of course," Aziraphale said.

"We are but poor circus performers, and we are lost from our company," the man said.

Looking them over, Aziraphale could believe it. The front man had a long, dramatic coat with a fantastically colored hat atop his head. The woman was dressed a bit like a pirate if the pirate wore only a profusion of black lace, swashbuckling sword included. The other man was quite tall but a bit gormless-looking, for all that he was dressed in the style of the exhibition fighters she'd seen in fairs past.

"We were told," the ringleader went on, "that there might be a village nearby that would appreciate our craftsmanship."

Aziraphale shook her head briefly. "No, I'm afraid you've been misinformed. There is nothing nearby. Not for miles."

The man smiled broadly. "Then there will be no one to hear you scream."

Aziraphale stiffened in alarm, ready to jerk the reins and gallop away, but the tall man stepped forward quickly, grasped her by the arm with a grip like iron, and yanked.

That was all she remembered, for even as she was sliding free of the saddle, the ringleader darted close and expertly touched places on her neck that made her black out.

.

.

.

"What? That's not a thing," Theresa griped. "Are we meant to assume he's secretly a Vulcan?"

Mary fussed with placing her bookmark and furrowed her brow. "Of course not. It's just a bit of poetic license, I'm sure."

"Or your author watched a lot of Star Trek."

Mary gave a small gasp of delight. "Wouldn't that be something? I love that show. I should ask in my next letter."

Theresa paused in settling into her own bed. Mary was absolutely the type, she realized. And the order did promote a vigorous "letter to the editor" policy.

"Do they write back?" she asked, considering it the question with the least likelihood of inspiring a tangent. A smarter woman wouldn't have asked even one, but, well, they all had their reasons for being a member of a satanic order.

Mary let out a slightly pensive sigh. "No. But, I haven't received a restraining order yet, so maybe the sixtieth time will be the charm." She gave the book a loving pat as she set it on the bedside table.

Theresa buried all the many, many follow-up questions she had in her pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Spoilery content warnings for this chapter:** Aziraphale is told to not be late to the engagement announcement, but Aziraphale is fairly sure Michael is indirectly engineering the situation to set Aziraphale up to fail just so she can chide her about it. This is presented as part of a larger pattern Aziraphale has picked up on and seems largely resigned to. Also, Gabriel continues to be patronizing and mildly infantilizing toward Aziraphale.


	4. The Shrieking Eels & the Cliffs of Insanity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content Warning(s) for this chapter (see end notes for more details):** Kidnappers threatening harm to their captive, references to a character intentionally injuring themselves and bleeding as a result (off screen), shrieking eels (off screen)

When Theresa stepped into her room the next night, it was to face not one but two sets of eagerly shining eyes turned toward her expectantly.

"Absolutely not," she said.

Sister Grace folded her hands up in a facsimile of piety and pouted. "Don't be a stick in the mud, Theresa. This was one of my favorites as a girl. When I heard you were doing a read aloud, I insisted on joining."

"When you heard, hm?" Theresa said repressively as she cast a righteous stink eye at Sister Mary, who was practically vibrating with glee on her bed.[4]

"Oh, isn't this exciting! It'll be like a proper sleepover party now!" she said with a squeal.

Sister Theresa turned to Grace, who was making herself at home on Theresa's own bed. Normally, Theresa approved of such presumption, but that was when the presumption didn't directly impact her.

"Is there any chance of me convincing you to bugger off?"

Sister Grace fluttered her lashes and smirked. "Not a one," she said sweetly and patted the open spot on the bed—Theresa's own bed!—beside her invitingly.

"If someone doesn't get killed in this chapter, I'm kicking the _both_ of you out," Theresa threatened.

.

.

.

Aziraphale awoke to the sound of lapping water, the sight of a coarse blanket over her face, and the feel of someone lowering her down onto a firm surface.

She held still as she tried to get her bearings, head still swimming from whatever the strange man had done to her.

Oh, God above, they'd bound her hands.

"Anathema, watch her," the ringleader's voice said from somewhere close by. "Newt, get this tragedy of a boat cast off."

"I know she doesn't look like much, but _The Queen Elizabeth_ is very reliable," said a voice very close by, though it faded as footsteps clomped away. Newt, she presumed, who must have been the tall, strong one who'd pulled her from her horse.

"If she's not, you'll be the first I feed to the eels," the ringleader promised darkly.

"Yes, sir, Mr. Ligur," Newt said meekly.

"What are you doing there?" a woman's voice asked from almost on top of her, and Aziraphale flinched. She hadn't heard the other woman's approach.

"It's fabric from the uniform of a Guildarian soldier," Ligur replied with a smug chuckle. There was the sound of tearing fabric. "I'll attach some to her horse and send it running back to the castle. When it arrives—missing the princess but carrying the uniform—and they follow the trail we've left to this port and across the strait, they'll naturally suspect Guilder's involvement. And when they find her mutilated body on the Guilder frontier, they'll have no choice but to accept it."

" _Kill_ her," Newt squeaked from across the boat. "You didn't say anything about killing!"

Aziraphale held very, very still.

"We've been hired to start a war, you idiot," Ligur scoffed. "Did you think the task wouldn't come with bloodshed?"

"I thought this was a ransom job," Newt went on plaintively. "Anathema, did you know about this?"

"Of course," she replied coolly. "I may not like it, but here is where I'm meant to be, so here is where I'll stay."

"No, now, none of that," Ligur said, sounding cross. "I won't have any of your flim flam, witch. Nor any more of your whining, meathead."

There was the sound of a loud smack, and then Aziraphale's horse whinnying and galloping away.

"I just don't think it's right, killing an innocent woman," Newt said, though with not nearly enough conviction to be an effective protest, to Aziraphale's brittle annoyance.

"God does it all the time, and it doesn't bother him, so it shouldn't bother you. Besides, you're not paid to think." The floor of the boat tilted slightly and the vibration of sturdy boots hitting the planking shivered through Aziraphale as she squeezed her eyes shut in the gloom of the blanket. "Now, sail the ship."

"Do you think it's wise, talking about this in front of her?" Anathema asked quietly.

"I don't see why not. That hold I used is a famous assassin's trick. It took years to master. She'll be unconscious for at least another hour."

"Oh?" Anathema said politely. "Because she's been awake for the last five minutes, at least."

"What?" Ligur growled.

The blanket was ripped away from Aziraphale's face, and she flinched as the bright afternoon sunlight hit her eyes.

"Inconceivable," Ligur muttered, glaring down at her.

Aziraphale squinted back up at the pair, looking warily between them and not liking one bit that Ligur's hand rested menacingly on the hilt of his dagger and Anathema's on the hilt of her sword. It made her fingers twitch for her own tiny dagger, but that wasn't in reach at the moment, with her hands tied and a mass of skirts in the way.

"You are making a grave mistake," she tried. "War with Guilder can only ruin both countries. No amount of money could be worth the devastation."

"Good thing we don't plan to stick around then, isn't it?" Ligur said with a smirk. "With this job, our names will be on the map, and we can sell our talents to any other countries looking for the same level of craftsmanship."

"If you survive," Aziraphale pointed out as she awkwardly pushed herself up to a seated position. She knew better than to attempt to stand.

Ligur narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Only that the prince is very proud, and he surrounds himself with only the most talented of people. His Grand Master of the Hunt is quite effective. They will find me, and when they do, I wouldn't want to be in your place. Prince Gabriel does not tolerate being made to look foolish. He will have you executed—all of you." She cast a serious gaze between all three of them, trying to make eye contact.

From the rudder, where he was slowly steering them out of the small cove and into the sea proper, Newt groaned in despair.

Ligur merely smiled, a slow blooming, feral thing that made his orange eyes glint like hot coals.

"Oh, I don't think it will come to that," he rumbled and turned away to stride to the bow of the ship.

Aziraphale turned to Anathema. If Ligur's mind was made up, and Newt apparently too weak-willed to be effective, maybe there was hope yet left in this corner.

"Anathema, was it?" she asked, trying for a friendly smile but feeling it waver terribly.

The grave-looking woman nodded solemnly.

"Please, you must believe me. This is—is folly! You cannot hope to survive. Whatever the outcome, you will have to contend with the prince's ire or the war that would surely break out if you succeed."

"Oh, I will survive this," Anathema said lightly. "It's foretold."

"I—foretold?" Aziraphale spluttered.

Anathema shrugged. "My grandmother was a master of prophecies. It's at her direction I'm even here. So, I'm afraid you can't dissuade me." She shrugged, suddenly looking a little awkward as her gaze cut away. "Sorry. It's just how it's meant to be."

"Oh, poppycock," Aziraphale protested vehemently. "I happen to be something of an expert in prophecy—it's why the prince took an interest in me. And the first thing you learn about prophecies is that they are never so straightforward."

Anathema turned back to her sharply, pinning Aziraphale with glittering eyes. "If you've studied prophecies, and the prince of Florin sought you because of it, then you must know that war is nigh. It's one of the few things all the different oracles can agree on."

"Not if I can help it," Aziraphale promised, feeling herself puff up with indignation. "There are, are _hints_ , in the texts. There might be a way to prevent it, at the last. And I'm very close to figuring out how. So, _please_ , you must not do this. I need to get back so I can finish my work."

Anathema stared at her for a long moment, surprise and curiosity shining in her somber eyes.

"Oi, what are you two nattering on about?" Ligur called from the bow of the ship. When Aziraphale looked up, he was staring over his shoulder at them suspiciously. "Do we need to gag you as well, princess?"

"She's just begging for her life," Anathema said, toneless, as she cast an inscrutable glance Aziraphale's way.

"Oh, well that's all right then," Ligur said with a mean grin.

Aziraphale felt the last of her hope of being able to appeal to someone's, anyone's, humanity bleed away. She would just have to get herself out of this, somehow. For though she had no doubt that Prince Gabriel would send Uriel, and possibly even Michael, after her, she didn't want to risk the timing of their arrival.

As Anathema turned away, Aziraphale called, "Wait, a moment, please."

Anathema shook her head. "I am truly sorry, but I cannot help you. It wasn't written."

"Not as sorry as me, I should think," Aziraphale couldn't help but retort a bit waspishly and felt a very uncharitable twinge of satisfaction when the other woman cringed in obvious guilt. "But, well, I was only going to ask for the blanket again. I'm cold."

Looking frustratingly relieved for someone planning to aid in a murder, Aziraphale thought, Anathema stooped to grab the blanket and then gently spread it over Aziraphale's lap.

Aziraphale awkwardly tugged it up until she was able to tuck it over both shoulders. It was long enough to cover her entire body.

Perfect, she thought, and began very carefully and very slowly to draw her skirt up her leg.

( _"Ooh, saucy," Sister Grace said with a cheeky wink._

_Theresa rolled her eyes. "She's got a dagger up her thigh, you twit."_

_"Your tone says you think that makes it less saucy," Grace countered, pressing her shoulder into Teresa's and giving a little shimmy that jostled them both. "If anything, that makes it saucier."_

_"Oh, I quite agree, sister," Mary praised._

_Grace gave Theresa a smug look._ )

The afternoon wore on into evening, and the boat remained largely cloaked in silence. Ligur kept vigil at the bow, eyes fixed on the horizon, and Anathema retreated to keep Newt company by the rudder and help with the sail as necessary.

Occasionally, Newt attempted small talk with Anathema.

Aziraphale, when she could spare a moment to pay closer attention, was horrified to realize after some time that he was trying to _flirt_.

"Don't you want to know why she's called _The Queen Elizabeth_?" he asked with a fond pat to the rudder as the sun was setting the sea on gentle fire.

Anathema, who had been staring intently behind them, cut her eyes over to him and blinked rapidly as she focused. "Am I going to regret asking?" she asked finally.

Newt shrugged affably, a preemptive grin tugging at his lips.

Anathema sighed through her nose. "Well, then, Newt, why is your boat named _The Queen Elizabeth_?"

"Because if you come across her, you aft to bow!" he said with a jaunty wave to indicate the length of the ship.

Anathema closed her eyes and tipped her face heavenward. "Ohhhh, I regret it," she said quietly, but a tiny smile betrayed her.

Oh, good lord. She was flirting back, Aziraphale thought grumpily. A rogue's romance.

"No more puns now, I mean it!" Ligur bellowed from the bow.

"He _means_ everything. Part of being an assassin, being _mean_ ," Newt muttered.

"No, shh," Anathema said, placing a restraining hand on his arm that very effectively communicated he should quit while he was ahead.

Newt gave her a dopey smile back.

Once dark had fallen properly, Ligur turned his attention back to the boat.

"What are you staring at?" he asked Anathema suspiciously.

When Aziraphale looked, the witch was again looking behind them intently, hand gripping the hilt of her sword.

"How long did you say it would be before someone could follow us?" she asked.

"At least half an hour before the horse would get back to the castle, then another for them to organize properly and set out, and another again to reach the coast, plus time to get back to their boats to attempt the sea crossing. Even accounting for bigger, faster boats, we should still have at least an hour's lead."

"So there's no way someone could be following us already?" she pressed.

"It wouldn't be possible. Absolutely, totally, and in all other ways, inconceivable," he said firmly. Then, after a pause, "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, no reason," Anathema said sarcastically. "It's just that something is behind us."

"What?" Ligur hissed and strode across the length of the ship to crowd up beside Anathema and Newt at the aft.

The dark waters were barely illuminated by the moon, but there was indeed another small sailing boat, maybe a little over a mile behind them. Its black sail billowed strong in the breeze, and they could just make out a small, solitary figure standing at the rudder. A man in black.

"Inconceivable," Ligur whisper-shrieked.

Anathema looked at him with a flat expression. "It must be some local fisherman out for a pleasure cruise alone at night through eel-infested waters," she said dryly.

"No one in Guilder could know what we've done yet, and no one in Florin could have gotten here so quickly," Ligur insisted. He shook his head. "No," he growled, "what we have is an interloper. A third party. Someone trying to mess us about."

"And he's gaining on us," Newt observed shrilly.

Aziraphale judged this was, however inconvenient, her moment.

She'd spent the afternoon painstakingly retrieving her tiny dagger from the discreet sheath strapped to her inner thigh and preparing for her escape attempt. First, she'd cut through the rope binding her hands, then made a series of slits in the skirt of her over dress, and finally carefully shortened her underdress and chemise to mid-thigh. She'd also removed the heavy belt Prince Gabriel had gifted her (through Michael) to signal their engagement. So, when she stood abruptly, both the blanket and many yards of heavy fabric fell away as well.

Before she could second-guess herself, she dove over the side of the boat and into the sea. When she surfaced, she started immediately for the other boat. _Better the devil you know_ was only a useful adage when you weren't entirely sure the devil you knew was going to murder you to start a war.

"Go in, go in!" Ligur bellowed.

"I don't swim!" Newt protested.

"I only float," Anathema rejoined.

Aziraphale continued with an industrious breaststroke, working to put as much distance between her and _The Queen Elizabeth_ as possible. The other boat was only a speck, and within a minute she started to despair. Even with the slits to free her legs and having removed some of the extra weight, she was still wearing high-court fashion, which soaked up water like a sponge.

"She's headed for the other boat," Anathema observed. "Interesting."

"Not interesting—terrible!" Ligur insisted. "Newt, veer us around." Then, projecting his voice louder. "Princess, if you value your life, you'll turn right around and come back."

If Aziraphale thought she had breath for it, she would have laughed. It was precisely because she valued her life that she was making this mad attempt. As it was, she was already beginning to feel the burn in her muscles and sting in her lungs that signaled she wouldn't be able to make it. Maybe, if she could count on resting occasionally in a dead man's float, she could let the other boat catch up. But that would put her at the mercy of _The Queen Elizabeth_.

"Did you know that shrieking eels can scent blood from over a hundred fathoms away?" Ligur called.

Well, that was entirely the wrong unit of measurement, but Aziraphale supposed she took his meaning.

"When they do, they go wild."

"What are you—" Newt yelped and then called out to her: "He's cut his arm, Princess! He's going to hold it over the side of the boat."

"Princess Aziraphale," Anathema called, voice sounding strained. "You're going to drown, or get eaten. Come back."

"Yes, listen to reason," Ligur crooned, loudly.

From a distance, Aziraphale heard the first shriek. It pierced the air and echoed strangely off the surface of the water.

That... wasn't ideal.

There was a second shriek, from a different direction than the first, and much louder.

"There they are—they're coming! They always shriek louder when they're about to feed on human flesh."

Aziraphale hesitated, holding herself up in the water and looking around frantically for a telltale rippling in the water's surface that would signal how close or far the eels might be.

"Come back now, and I promise you on my honor as an assassin, I'll make your death swift and painless," Ligur called. "I doubt you'll get such a bargain from the eels."

A third shriek now, and a fourth that started before the previous had even had a chance to fade. Aziraphale's heart pounded in her chest. The other boat was still only barely visible. Her arms and legs were feeling more and more like lead as the cold water and heavy cloth steadily sapped her strength.

From the periphery of her vision, she thought she saw something break through the surface of the water, and she had to stifle a shriek of her own.

( _"She doesn't get eaten by the eels at this time," Mary said._

_Theresa blinked. "What?"_

_"You were looking worried," Mary said with a concerned pinch to her brow. "I thought I should let you know. The eels don't get her."_

_It was then Theresa realized at some point she'd started to hold her breath. She let it out in an irritated sigh. "I wasn't worried."_

_"Oh, I was," Grace confessed, "and I already knew it would turn out all right." She clutched Theresa's arm closer to her like a cuddly toy._

_Theresa supposed it was a little damning that she was holding a double fist of the fabric from the lap of her sensible nightgown. "Maybe I was a little... concerned," she conceded. "But that's not the same thing. Obviously the author's not about to kill off the main character this early in the book. Still, I don't think anyone would fancy being mangled by an eel."_

_Grace shuddered next to her. "Well, go on! Don't keep her in suspense."_ )

With a last, frustrated look toward the tiny glimmer of salvation, Aziraphale turned and began swimming back toward _The Queen Elizabeth_. She would just have to try another escape attempt later.

When she was within reach, Newt leaned over the side. He had her grab onto his forearm with both hands, and he hauled her up like she weighed no more than a half-drowned cat.

"Keep her warm," Anathema called from her new post at the rudder. She tossed down her cloak. Newt grabbed it and the blanket and began a frantic and mostly effective job at patting her dry.

Ligur, meanwhile, busied himself retying her hands at the wrists and then her feet at the ankles, and then hauled her over to the main mast to lash her to that as well. Luckily, in the hubbub, it didn't occur to him to search her for her dagger.

"I suppose you think you're very brave," Ligur sneered when he was done tying the last knot with a vicious flourish.

"Only compared to some," Aziraphale muttered through chattering teeth, the heady mix of fear, frustration, and exhaustion doing more to make her shiver than the cold, though it certainly was that too.

Ligur bared his teeth and raised a hand to strike her, but Newt stumbled into his path.

"Oh, sorry, sir," he gasped. "Here, let me help you," he said and hauled both himself and Ligur back to their feet, sending them stumbling when he used too much force. "Sorry, sorry, again—you know I don't know my own strength sometimes."

Ligur angrily shrugged him off and spared a furiously pointed finger in Aziraphale's direction. "Keep hold of your tongue. I may have promised to make your death painless, but that doesn't cover the time between now and then."

Aziraphale glared but kept her mouth shut.

"Ligur," Anathema called from the rudder, "look!" She pointed toward the bow.

They all turned. A tall shadow blotted out the stars on the horizon. In another moment, the moon came out from behind a cloud and glinted off the pale stone of a towering cliff face.

"The Cliffs of Insanity," Ligur said with satisfaction. "We've made it."

They were the most direct route between Florin and Guilder, if one traveled across the sea channel between the two kingdoms. But they were not inaptly named. There was a reason trade was conducted by taking the long route around the peninsula to reach one of several other ports further inland.

"Newt, help me with the rope," Ligur commanded.

Aziraphale watched them pull together what looked like the sort of rigging a painter might use to suspend himself to apply his art to a ceiling. Newt was strapping on some sort of harness liberally decorated with thick loops of steel-reinforced leather. She considered this, then the sheer cliff face, and came up with the only possible conclusion, no matter how ridiculous.

"You can't mean for us to scale the cliff face," she said anyway.

"I do," Ligur preened. "This is what will keep our edge."

"What if the man in black climbs the rope behind us?" Anathema asked, sounding uneasy.

"He won't. It's too far to climb for a normal person, even with the rope. Even if he manages partway, with Newt we'll reach the top far ahead of him and we can cut the rope behind us. Might even wait until he's partway up to do it. More satisfying that way," Ligur mused, looking nearly gleeful at the prospect.

Together, Newt and Anathema steered the boat into a small cove at the base of the cliff. Newt tossed the anchor over the side like he was throwing out an apple core.

"Sink it," Ligur said quietly as he freed Aziraphale from the mast and cut loose her ankles.

Newt gasped. "Not _The Queen Elizabeth_."

"We don't have time for this, Ligur," Anathema insisted, indicating the black-sailed boat getting noticeably closer now that they had stopped moving.

Ligur grumbled but conceded.

At the base of the cliff was the tail end of a thick rope whose length stretched back up to the top of the cliffs, which were obscured by both height and the gloom of the night. Anathema helped Aziraphale into a rigging that fit over her hips and thighs like a basket seat and attached to Newt's harness.

When they were all fitted and affixed, they shuffled awkwardly to the rope. Newt raised his arms over his head, grabbed the rope, and began to pull himself up, hand over hand, curling his legs around the rope as a brace when he was high enough.

"This is mad," Aziraphale muttered to herself as the straps between her rigging and Newt's harness stretched taut. With the next pull, she was lurched off her feet with a yelp.

"It's insane," Anathema agreed dryly from her position to Aziraphale's right.

Newt snorted a laugh above them.

"Shut up," Ligur snapped from Aziraphale's left. His gaze was trained down, watching the other boat as it grew larger with nearness.

Aziraphale took one look down and decided on a firm "no, thank you" and instead stared grimly at her own bound hands where they gripped one of the leather straps that connected her to the improbably strong man carrying himself and three other full-grown people up a rope that had to stretch nearly three hundred metres high up a sheer cliff face. As they rose higher, the sea breeze began to cut through her damp dress even through Anathema's loaned cloak. Within minutes she was shivering, her teeth chattering.

Maybe the eels had been a more sensible option after all.

"He's climbing the rope," Anathema announced sometime later.

"I can see that," Ligur said testily.

"And I can feel it, his body weight on the rope. How fast is he?" Newt asked, sounding so calm and coolly confident that Aziraphale blinked up at him in surprise.

"Fast. He's gaining," Anathema said, tone grim.

"Inconceivable," Ligur hissed. "Newt! Faster."

"I thought I was going faster!"

"You're supposed to be a prodigy," Ligur pressed. "The most spectacular strongman the Pulsifer line has produced in three generations. And yet, he gains."

"Not to complain, Ligur, sir, but he's only got himself. I'm carrying three other people." He sounded almost _testy_. Aziraphale supposed she would be too, in his position.

"I'm not interested in excuses. I'll just have to find myself a new strongman, after this," Ligur said darkly.

"You're doing wonderfully, Newt," Anathema countered.

Ligur growled. "Don't coddle him, witch."

"There is literally no one else who could pull this off."

"Who is paying you for this job, hmm? Or do you have other revenue sources to fund your mystical revenge quest?"

" _Please_ ," Aziraphale gritted out between clenched teeth. "I think we should all like to get to the top as soon as is superhumanly possible. Mr. Pulsifer, do you perform better under threat or praise?" she called up.

"Er…"

"Praise," Anathema said decisively. "Newt, I know you can do it."

"Yes, jolly good," Aziraphale said, by far trusting the witch over the assassin or even Newt's own self-assessment. "Come on, Newt, buck up!"

Peering upward, Aziraphale could just see the back of Newt's neck flush dark enough to be noticeable even in the faint moonlight. He started climbing faster.

Ligur rolled his eyes so hard his head rolled back, though Aziraphale noted he took care not to jostle his harness in the process.

"Shit," Anathema swore. "Newt! He's climbing faster now, too."

"Nearly there," Newt grunted.

"Go, Newt," Ligur said, finally, though in Aziraphale's mind it sounded much too like a snarl to be proper encouragement.

Anathema kept a steady report of the man in black's progress while Newt's breathing got more and more labored as he maintained the punishing pace. Ligur vacillated between demanding Newt go faster and announcing how quickly he would cut the rope once they were at the top. Aziraphale wasn't sure if any of it was meant to be genuinely encouraging. So, not liking her chances of surviving should the man in black force a confrontation on the cliff face, she took it upon herself to keep up a stream of gentle, effusive praise in between all the doomsaying.

"Oh, just a few more metres, Mr. Pulsifer, there we are," she said, keeping her own eyes fixed to the approaching lip of the cliff. "You're doing so well, my dear fellow. One couldn't ask for a better strongman. You are a credit to your name." She was, admittedly, laying it on a bit thick, considering her exposure to strongmen and strongwomen was limited to a handful of traveling showcases she'd been dragged along to. Still, she didn't think now, suspended hundreds of metres above certain doom, was a good time to admit to an indifferent knowledge of the sport.

Finally, Newt was hauling himself over the edge of the cliff and then awkwardly turning and reaching back down to grab Ligur's outstretched hand and pull him up after. Anathema was next. When it was Aziraphale's turn, Anathema and Newt both helped pull her up and over. She didn't put up even a pretense of a fight as Anathema tugged her to one side and started undoing the harness straps. Between sitting so awkwardly for so long, the cold, and the outflowing of nerves now that the most immediate of her immediate dangers had passed, her legs were turned to jelly.

"Sit, sit," Anathema encouraged, leading her over to a nearby rock and pushing her down. "And don't go anywhere."

The witch bounded back over to the edge of the cliff to join Newt, who was staring down over the edge at the man in black's progress.

Ligur was further inland, crouched by a huge rocky outcrop where the rope was secured and sawing determinedly through the strands with a dagger. Within a handful of gasped breaths, the last of the threads snapped, and the rope slithered like a live thing across the ground and down over the edge of the cliff.

Silence held for a long moment.

"Well?" Ligur said, getting slowly to his feet and stalking forward. "Is he landed yet, or still falling?"

"Um," Newt hedged.

"He let go of the rope in time," Anathema said blankly. "He's… he's holding on to the cliff face."

"No!" Ligur said, rushing the last couple paces so he could peer down too.

Aziraphale tried standing, since they were once again all conveniently distracted by the man in black, but had to give it up as a bad job. How were the rest of them upright, honestly? She had pins and needles all down her legs.

"He's climbing," Newt reported, sounding impressed.

" _Inconceivable_ ," Ligur snarled.

Anathema looked at him. "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means," she said with the preternatural calm of someone about to lose their entire mind.

Ligur turned his snarl on her. "It's impossible!" he insisted. "And if you don't believe me, then you can be the one to stay and make sure he doesn't follow us. If he doesn't fall, kick him when he's close enough."

Anathema scowled at him.

"Oh, that doesn't sound very sporting," Newt protested.

"Need I remind you both that your _jobs_ are at stake? Our very reputations as assassins?"

"If he makes it to the top, I'll fight him," Anathema conceded. "He won't be able to best my sword."

"Have it your way," Ligur said, exasperated. "We'll be headed directly for the Guilder frontier. Once he's dead, catch up as quickly as you can. I won't wait forever."

Anathema nodded.

"Newt, carry the princess."

"I beg your pardon?" Aziraphale asked and fought to stand up. She was a little wobbly still, but she got her feet under her well enough. "I can walk, thank you."

"You can do better than walk, or Newt will have you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, your highness," Ligur promised with a nasty grin.

Aziraphale cast a wary eye in Newt's direction, who shrugged and nodded apologetically. Turning her nose up, she marched away from the cliff face, forcing Ligur to hustle to regain the lead.

"Catch up quickly," she heard Newt say to Anathema. "And be careful. Men in masks can't be trusted."

"I'll be fine," Anathema said, sounding fond. "Farewell, Newt."

"Farewell, Anathema."

Well, at least she'd get a reprieve from whatever was going on there, Aziraphale thought grimly. With any luck, she'd be murdered before the lovebirds could be reunited.

* * *

  


4 Tonight's sartorial offering was an ankle-length cotton nightgown printed with depictions of HIM from the "Powerpuff Girls" cavorting about in what appeared to be an ankle-length nightgown printed with depictions of HIM—Theresa stopped looking out of self-preservation. [return to text]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to say that casting Newt as the Fezzik character was a well-reasoned and thoughtfully approached decision, but I definitely started with "well, Anathema is for sure Inigo, so... and hey it would be hilarious if Newt was still his excruciatingly awkward self and just inexplicably strong." Then I went back and spackled on some thin narrative justification and called it a day (more on that next chapter). I mean, I could spin you some bs about the parallels of genetic legacies of superhuman abilities/curses, but it def didn't start out That Deep.
> 
> **Spoilery content warnings for this chapter:**
> 
>   * Ligur, Anathema, and Newt have kidnapped Aziraphale and are planning to take her by boat to the Guilder Frontier to murder her and frame Guilder to start a war. Ligur repeatedly threatens harm to Aziraphale and doesn't make a secret that he's going to kill (eventually) her. Anathema and Newt don't make specific threats, but they are complicit in the overall plot to kidnap and (eventually) kill her, even if they express moral discomfort about the fact.
>   * When Aziraphale tries to swim away from the boat, Ligur tries to get her to come back by cutting his arm and threatening to drip blood into the water as bait to draw in the shrieking eels to eat her. Aziraphale doesn't witness either the cutting or the blood; it's only described to her in non-graphic terms.
>   * We do not see the shrieking eels directly, but we do hear them. While they get v. close to taking a chomp out of Aziraphale, she's pulled back into the boat in time to escape.
> 



	5. The Mighty Duel & The Throwdown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to [LeilaKalomi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeilaKalomi/pseuds/LeilaKalomi) for beta help! Many an awkward descriptions were smoothed with her insight. <3
> 
> **Content Warning(s) for this chapter (see end notes for more details):** non-graphic violence, including a non-graphic reference to blood, BUT also a scene with attempted asphyxiation that's told from the POV of the character being choked. If you're familiar with the PB source material, you'll know what this is and how it turns out, but take care of yourselves and read the end-note spoilers if you need more deets!

Anathema watched the others leave with a heavy heart.

Her heart was heavy more days than not, these days. It came with pledging oneself to the services of a ruthless assassin because a prophecy written before you were even born said it must be so.

With a sigh, she turned her face and thoughts away and resumed watching the man in black slowly but surely scale the nearly vertical cliff face with preternatural skill. He was finding the slimmest of hand– and footholds and doing a lot of gravity-defying shimmies of his hips. Somehow, he was making progress where even a goat might think better of their life choices.

Who was he, to be this determined to follow them? Logic said he must know they had the princess and was after her for his own purposes. But although Anathema had observed the princess attempt to make her way toward his ship in her ill-fated escape attempt, she'd made no indication she knew who their pursuer was, other than a possible refuge from murder. And while Ligur was sometimes too bullheaded and self-assured of his plans for his own good, he had proved himself in the short time she'd known him to be very well connected. She didn't doubt that when he said there was no chance of official pursuit from Florin so quickly, he probably knew what he was about.

Well, since it was going to be some time before the man reached the top, and she had questions...

"Hello there," she called down.

The man looked up, eyes incredulously wide even through the gaps of his mask. There was something strange about them, although it was still too dark and there was too much distance to tell what exactly.

"I'm curious why you're following us," she went on. "I don't suppose you'd tell me why?"

"I might if it was any of your business," he grunted, looking back down to find another handhold.

She shrugged. "Fair enough. I thought it might help pass the time. Slow going, after all."

The man briefly rested his forehead against the cliff face before scowling up at her. "Look, I don't mean to be rude," he said in tones that said he absolutely meant to be rude, "but I am _a little busy here_. So if you could try not to distract me, that would be _grand_."

Anathema sighed and gazed up at the moon for a few minutes. The issue was, this was going to take a long time, and Ligur's threat wasn't an idle one. If she wasn't able to catch up quickly, he wouldn't wait for her, and the rest of her payment for this job and her only solid lead on locating the Six-Fingered Woman would be lost with him.

"I don't suppose you could speed things up?" she asked.

"Look, if you're so eager for small talk or whatever, you could at least _try_ to be useful and throw me a tree branch or a rope or, Satan's sake, _something_ ," the man complained.

"I wouldn't think you'd accept my help," she admitted. "I am only waiting around to kill you, after all."

The man barked a laugh. "That does put a damper on our relationship."

Anathema puffed out a breath. At the pace he was reduced to, it would take another hour, at least, for him to reach the top, assuming his strength didn't give out before then. She didn't want to risk waiting that long. Also, sitting watching a man you didn't have any particular grudge against dangle over space and fight for his life was stressful. If she watched much longer, she might start _rooting_ for him, which would make having to kill him later very awkward.

"I have some extra rope up here," she admitted. "I could throw it down for you to climb up."

The man squinted up at her. "You literally _just said_ you were waiting around to kill me. How do I know you won't wait until I've let go of the cliff and then drop me?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not _that_ cold-blooded. Besides, why would I have admitted I was waiting for you to get up here to kill you if I was just planning on tricking you anyway?"

He stared at her, shaking his head minutely in disbelief. "Your saying that in a very reasonable tone does _not_ make the logic any less batshit."

"I could give you my word as a witch."

"No good. I've known too many witches."

She considered. "I give you my word on the soul of my grandmother, Agnes Nutter, witch, and the only writer of true prophecies in an age, and whose words have guided me to where I stand right now. Within the best of my ability, I will ensure you reach the top alive."

The man looked at her for a long moment with eyes that pierced the gloom and seemed to see into her soul. He blew out a gusty sigh. "All right, fine, throw me the rope."

Anathema wasted no time unwinding the slack from the boulder and feeding it over the edge of the cliff. When the man in black had a good grip, she even went so far as to help pull as he climbed to aid in his ascent. Within a matter of minutes, he was scrambling over the edge and stumbling upright, shaking out his hands and arms and rolling his shoulders to work them loose.

"Decent of you," he conceded, casting her a side glance as he put his hand to the hilt of the sword strapped to his hip.

Anathema shifted uncomfortably. Now that he was at the top, she was more acutely aware this was the first sword fight she might have to end not at first blood or even to incapacitation but fully "to the death." She'd only been in Ligur's employ for a little more than a year, and to this point had managed to avoid such a conclusion, much to her employer's obvious frustration. But this was a man who'd followed them not just across the sea in the dead of night but scaled the Cliffs of Insanity nearly single-handedly. At this rate, she didn't think anything less than death was likely to stop his pursuit.

"Take a moment," she insisted. "It wouldn't be sporting of me to help you up only to cut you down without a chance to prepare for our duel."

The man stared at her for a long moment before saying, "Right," in such a flat tone that she felt certain he saw straight through her. Still, he took the opportunity to sit down on a nearby rock and yank off his boots, one by one, to shake out a comical amount of rocks and dust.

"You look like you've seen much of this world—am I right?" she asked, struck by sudden inspiration. At the man's wary nod, she said, "Tell me, have you ever encountered a woman with six fingers on her right hand?" If this was where she was destined to get the next breadcrumb clue on her quest, then perhaps she wouldn't have to fight this stranger after all.

The man fell absolutely still. "Why do you ask?"

"I am sworn to kill her."

"Oh, is that all?" the man said sarcastically. "What did ol' Fingers McGee do to you?" There was a curious emphasis on the "you" in the statement that made Anathema's heart start to pound and gooseflesh break out over her arms.

"You do know her," she accused. "Tell me who she is."

The man pulled a face and stomped back into his second boot. "Look, I don't know who she _is_. Had a few run-ins with her, but it was all hush-hush, cloak-and-dagger stuff. Never saw her face, and I certainly don't know her name." He quirked an eyebrow, visible even under the mask. "Although I do know a tidbit I think you must not."

Anathema leaned forward, hands clenching into fists on her knees. "Tell me."

"Answer my question," the man countered easily, slouching back onto the rocks and folding his arms over his chest. It didn't look like it could possibly be comfortable, but he seemed relaxed.

Anathema narrowed her eyes and weighed the pros and cons of spilling her family's secrets to a potentially dangerous man. Time, or the lack thereof, was what decided her. Not enough time to settle this and meet Ligur, to be in the right place at the right time to meet her destiny, to possibly avert a war that could tear two nations apart.

She dug into one of her pockets and withdrew a worn scroll, the paper feathery with age and handling. After a moment's hesitation, the man took it and unrolled it.

"The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch," he read slowly and blinked. "Prophecies?" he asked, sounding equally annoyed and intrigued.

"That's just a sample, the few she said I would need," she said. "Agnes was my grandmother."

"Family business, then? Being witches and telling prophecies?" he asked, tilting the scroll this way and that as he peered at it, eyes squinting. "What do these even mean?" he demanded, though it seemed rhetorical.

"Of a sort," Anathema agreed. "My grandmother was the first writer of true prophecies in an age, and much sought after for her foresight by those who are able to tell the difference between talented forecasters and true oracles. The Six-Fingered Woman arrived at our house one day when I was a little girl. 'I have heard you are a prophetess of distinction,' she said. 'I must know the future of our country.' My grandmother was always cross with people who demanded she tell their future on command, but to the Six-Fingered Woman she merely said, 'I expected you ten minutes hence. Return here in a year and I will have your book of prophecies, and this time try to be punctual.'"

The man in black choked on air and coughed out a laugh. "I can't imagine she liked that!"

Anathema felt a smile tug at her mouth unbidden. It had been many years since she'd told the story, and many more since she'd been able to appreciate the humor of the moment.

"I think she would have struck Grandmother down right then if she didn't want the prophecies," she agreed. The Six-Fingered Woman's expression had turned so brittle Anathema had been surprised it hadn't cracked. She'd smothered her own laugh in her hands. The scene had been so farcical that it had stuck in her mind indelibly.

The man in black's smile drooped. "Well, that phrasing was ominous. I think I can guess at least part of how the next visit turned out."

Anathema nodded mutely and swallowed down her heart. "Agnes slaved over the book for almost the entire year. The prophecies didn't always come when she wanted. Sometimes she had to put herself into a 'receptive state,' which was… exhausting. I helped her, sometimes, when it was too much for my mother. When we asked her why it was so important, she kept saying it was necessary to prevent the end of the world."

The man looked back down at the scroll with new appreciation and wariness in the set of his mouth.

"When the Six-Fingered Woman returned, Agnes told her it was her nicest, most accurate set of prophecies—a whole book of them! But when she began to read it, the Six-Fingered Woman couldn't understand any of them."

The man snorted. "Yeah, need a proper scholar with a gift for it, most times," he said, sounding a bit wistful.

Just as he had been able to read clues and predictions into her words, Anathema thought she was beginning to understand the precise shape of the man in black's motivations for chasing them down.

( _Theresa scoffed. "Oh, come on, it's obviously_ — _"_

_"Shh!" she got in stereo from both Grace and Mary._

_"No spoilers," Grace hissed._

_"You've both_ read _this already!"_ )

"Yes. The Six-Fingered Woman was furious that she would have to pay for someone to interpret it for her and would only give over one tenth of her promised pay. Grandmother laughed at her. She said, 'Hear me, delegate, for you, failure is anathema, and that is why you shall perish.'"

"Harsh," the man observed with a low whistle. "Destined to die from not learning from her own mistakes?"

"Perhaps," she conceded. "Without a word, she drew her sword and slashed Grandmother through the heart. I loved my grandmother, so naturally I tried to fight her murderer. I was too young, though, and I only had a small knife for cutting herbs. She disarmed me within moments. I failed."

"And you're still alive?" the man asked curiously. "That doesn't square with my dealings with her. She would have considered an attack bad manners and struck you down like a rabid dog."

Anathema hummed in agreement. "She said she was sparing my life because she thought I might be useful later, if I ended up having the gift. But she left me these—" She tipped her face side to side to reveal the scars that slashed either cheek. "—as punishment."

"What an arse!" the man sounded honestly indignant on her behalf.

"So, that is why I am sworn to kill her."

"Revenge."

"Prophecy," she countered. "She favors the sword, so I've dedicated my life to it so that when I meet her again, she'll be the one who fails. I'll go up to her and say, 'Hello, my name is Anathema Device. You killed my grandmother. Prepare to die.'"

"Your _name_ is Anathema?" the man exclaimed with a gratifying gasp of shock.

Anathema fought the urge to preen. "Yes."

The man gave the scroll one last look before gently rolling it back up and passing it back to her. "That is a terrific story." He slapped his knees heartily and stood. "And I suppose it means we should get on with trying to kill each other."

"What? No!" Anathema protested, scrambling to her feet as well. "I told you the story. You owe me information."

The man in black withdrew his sword and held it in an easy grip at his left side. "Yeah, that's going to be a problem, I expect, because I was just going to tell you that you should ask your mate Ligur for her name. I've seen them together before."

" _What?_ "

"And since I doubt you want me tagging along when you go to find him and shake him down for the information—not to mention I _absolutely_ do not have the coins on me to buy out whatever money he's promised you for this kidnapping lark—that means we're going to have to fight." He shifted his sword and body into an en garde position, except his free hand was held in more of a jaunty, one-handed shrug than anything like proper technique. "Tell me I'm wrong," he goaded.

Anathema fumed but couldn't find any flaw in his reasoning. It was just that she really, absolutely did not want to kill this man, who had so far been more kind than irritating and who obviously was bent on some sort of daring rescue of the princess they were planning to murder. And to add insult to injury, it seemed he was catching on to her inner turmoil, and instead of doing something sensible like trying to reason with her, he was _baiting_ her.

She took a deep, calming breath through her nose and let it out slowly before shifting into her own ready stance. "You seem a decent person," she conceded through clenched teeth. "I hate to kill you."

" _You_ seem a decent person," he retorted cheerfully. "I hate to die."

"Begin," she snapped.

The man in black _slithered_ —there was no other word for it. Within a few exchanges, Anathema could tell his skill with the actual sword was good, possibly even very good, but he lacked the finesse and precision of a dedicated swordsman. He seemed instead to be skating by more on natural talent and his uncanny ability to never be quite where she expected him to. She couldn't even credit it to good footwork; he was just… slippery.

They ranged over the rocky terrain with her nearly always on the offense but never able to gain solid ground. When she took first blood—just a tiny slash on his wrist—he actually laughed out loud in delight.

"You are amazing, witch girl!" he enthused.

"Thank you," she gritted out. "It has not come without effort."

"I'll bet," he said, somehow scrambling backward up a scree-covered incline back toward the edge of the cliffs without losing his footing. "How long did it take you?"

"Ten years," she grunted, hopping up a series of step-like boulders rather than risking following where he'd further disturbed the soil.

"Fantastic."

He parried another lunge and swayed a few more steps backward, glancing over his shoulder at the horizon where the sky had been steadily lightening.

"You are absolutely better than me," he admitted and then yelped as he dodged yet another thrust.

Anathema pressed her advantage and herded him toward a rocky outcropping where she hoped to pin him down.

"Which is going to make this so much more humiliating for you. But honestly, I don't think you should blame yourself. Destiny and all that."

"Destiny?" she parroted, faltering for a moment and then kicking herself when it allowed him to get in a clean lunge that she had a difficult time parrying. The relentless, almost patronizing cheer was starting to get to her almost as much as his near supernatural ability to squirm out of every advantage she tried to press. Sweat prickled the back of her neck, and she fought to keep her breathing even. "Who are you?" she demanded.

"Ohhhhh," he drawled, smug as a cat with cream, "no one of consequence!"

The lying arse. "Then why are you smiling like that?"

He tripped back toward where there were almost no obstructions between him and the open air at the edge of the cliffs, looking positively gleeful to be putting himself in such a precarious position.

"Because I've read the prophecies your grandmother left you, and I know something you don't know."

A chill shot down her spine, and she shook her head slightly to dispel the uneasy feeling. He was bluffing. She could barely make sense of most of them, even with the advantage of knowing they all concerned her directly. "And what is that?" she taunted back.

He grinned. "Give it a tick—oh, there we are!"

The first true rays of sunlight set the sky on fire, and he rushed forward, knocking her sword aside and then tossing his own blade to his off hand so he could grab her by the wrist and keep her sword held aloft.

"'Guard thyself, granddaughter, lest ye succumb to the serpent's bite in thine heel,'" he hissed in her face and widened his eyes dramatically so the new-morning sun illuminated his eerie, snake-slitted yellow eyes.

Anathema gasped, feeling her entire body seize up in shock, and then she was falling to her knees, hard, as he kicked her near ankle sharply, taking her feet out from under her. A precise squeeze and twist to her wrist had her sword dropping from numb fingers, and the fight was over. The tip of the man in black's sword hovered at her throat.

( _"Oh, he_ cheated _," Sister Grace exclaimed and clapped. "Jolly good show!"_ )

The shock barely had time to set in before it was swamped with despair. She'd failed, again. Tears welled up, but she furiously blinked them back and glared balefully up at the man in black. With the sun properly rising, his eyes almost glowed from the shadows of his mask.

"Do it quickly," she requested stiffly.

The man's jaw dropped in affronted shock. "I would sooner destroy a da Vinci than an artist like yourself," he protested. Then, he grimaced. "But, since I can't have you following me, either…"

He trussed her up like a goose with the remains of the rope, but he marched her over to the relative shade of a scraggly, clifftop tree instead of leaving her in the open. Then, he insisted she take a healthy swallow from her waterskin. And _then_ he wedged a purposefully dulled knife in her palm.

"That should keep you busy for at _least_ an hour or two," he muttered more to himself than her and then checked the angle of the sun.

"I do not understand anything about you," Anathema observed, having been gently knocked out of despair and right back into shock again. At least she assumed the placid numbness she'd settled into as she watched this devil-eyed man treat her with just as much if not more consideration than she'd shown her prisoner earlier was shock. "Why don't you just leave me to rot?"

He tsked. "And leave you to the tender mercies of Gabriel's goons?" he asked, leaning into the alliteration with too much relish. "What do you take me for, a monster?"

And then he was bouncing to his feet and rushing off following the tracks left by Ligur, Newt, and the princess.

Anathema hung her head, wallowing in the censure for long moments, before squaring her shoulders and beginning to saw at the bindings.

It seemed it was time to rethink her approach to following prophecy.

.

.

.

Newt was the first to spot the man in black on their trail. He was a dark smudge from their vantage further up a short switchback trail that led from the cliffs to the Guilder frontier proper, but clearly alone and gaining. Newt stared at the smudge for a long moment, breath caught in his chest as he willed the smudge to resolve to a beloved face and a banner of lovely, dark hair. When he started getting dizzy from lack of oxygen, he let the last of his held breath and hope rush out.

"Anathema," he whimpered.

"What was that?" the princess called back from somewhere ahead on the trail. A moment later he heard her shuffle carefully back toward him and let out a quiet, "Oh." Silence stretched between them terribly as the figure in black gained further definition. "Well… perhaps she has merely been bested and not, er..." the princess trailed off awkwardly.

Newt turned to look at her, hope rising in his chest until he saw the tense set of the princess's jaw as she kept her gaze fixed on their pursuer.

"Yeah... maybe," he said, the words bitter in his mouth.

"It's a dangerous line of work you're in, my dear fellow," she said, casting him a quick glance that was at once sympathetic and reproving.

She wasn't wrong, and it made him squirm. Signing up with Ligur hadn't been his first or even his fifth choice. But finding work was hard for a strongman who'd been booted from the exhibition circuit because he was too polite to trash talk his opponents and too quick to end a match before anyone had a chance to suffer a career-ending injury. He needed to eat, and he'd hoped his tattered reputation would get enough of a boost by association to get his foot in the door of some other kind of traditional strongman work. A lord's personal guard, or membership in a brute squad, maybe.

"Inconceivable!" Ligur exploded from farther up the trail, having finally noticed that Newt and the princess had stopped. "The witch can't have lost!"

"Quite right," the princess said sweetly, and Newt braced himself. "I'm sure Anathema very handily defeated him and, to cement her victory, stole all his clothes and gained half a head in height to boot."

Newt sighed. He really liked the princess, which he recognized was a personal failing, but her poorly hidden bastard streak was proving exhausting.

As a thunderous Ligur stormed back toward them, Newt awkwardly shuffled around the princess to intercept him with an earnest exclamation of, "No, I'd know Anathema anywhere, and that can't be her. That has to be the man in black."

"Of course it's the man in black, you fool!" Ligur snarled, easily transferring his ire and getting in Newt's face. "She probably beat him but was too soft to finish the job, and he struck her down when her back was turned. If she'd done as she was told, she'd be joining us now."

"So, what should we do?" Newt squeaked, shrinking back from what he kept having to remind himself wasn't actual, literal fire in his boss's eyes.

"I'll tell you what we should do now!" Ligur exclaimed, and then scowled as he looked back down at the dark figure rapidly gaining on them. After a prolonged moment, he said, "Princess, you're coming with me. Newt, finish him—like a proper strongman. No faffing about." He pointed at one of the cannonball-sized rocks littering the edges of the trail. "Wait for him behind a corner, and when his head is in view, crush him."

The words seemed to leap from Newt's mouth: "That doesn't seem very sportsmanlike." He wished them back immediately. No matter that it was the truth—that it violated even the paper-thin rules of strongman competitions—he knew better.

Ligur looked at him, and Newt could see he was properly mad now. If Ligur was bothering to yell at you, he was irritated, possibly even angry. But when he got truly mad, he turned as cold as the deepest circle of hell save for the fiery blaze of his eerie orange eyes.

"Your girlfriend insisted on sportsmanlike, and look what it got her," he said, flat and toneless, and Newt flinched. "I'll tell you this once: Stop the man in black. Permanently. If you fail, I will make it my job to ensure even the memory of your name is a curse."

Newt thought of his mother, snug in her cottage back west and proudly telling her neighbors that her son was the most impressive Pulsifer strongman in generations.

He swallowed hard. He nodded.

"Good," Ligur said and then released Newt from his gaze. "Princess, now."

Newt looked at the ground, at the huge boulders that could crush a person's skull with even a small amount of force and that he could throw as easy as tossing a coin.

A pair of warm hands alighted on his arm, and he startled. When he turned, the princess was looking up at him with eyes as fathomless as a sea after a storm.

"I know what it is to lose love," she murmured. "I am sorry."

With a brisk squeeze to his arm, she looked away and followed after Ligur, who was already scouting ahead.

Newt stood very still and breathed very carefully for a long minute. Then, he shook himself all over and ventured further up the trail until he found a space reasonably big enough to hide himself.

.

.

.

Of course, at the last, just as with every major match where a ruthless application of his strength was required, Newt chickened out.

As the man in black jogged around the last bend in the switchback trail and onto the relatively wide ledge where Newt was hiding, Newt threw a huge boulder with tremendous strength and accuracy. It shattered against the cliff face about a metre away from the man in black's face.

"Satan's tits!" the man yelped, slithering back with awkward agility and drawing his sword.

Newt picked up another rock, smacked it against his opposite palm a few times, and tried to look stern. "I did that on purpose. I didn't have to miss."

The man in black turned wide eyes on him. They were yellow and slitted like those of a venomous snake. He might do well on the exhibition circuit, a part of Newt's mind cataloged, if he was able to make those eyes part of a gimmick.

"I believe you," the man said, holding his sword up in a defensive position.

They stood staring at each other for a drawn-out moment, the wind whistling softly through gaps in the nearby boulders.

The man in black shifted his weight. "So… now what?"

Newt frowned. "I'm supposed to kill you."

"Yeah, I gathered."

Newt scowled. "You murdered Anathema."

The man reared back, offended. "Witch girl? I absolutely did not. Left her hobbled to a tree, maybe, but I didn't kill her. What do you take me for?" He smiled razor sharp. "You?"

Newt felt his heart leap and a cold sweat break out over him. "I… are you serious?"

"Are _you_ serious?" the man countered, spreading his free arm wide. "About killing me, I mean. 'Cause if not, I'll just be on my way, and you can go help your friend."

He couldn't help a longing look back in the direction of the cliffs where he'd last seen Anathema. But, no, if she was dead, she was dead. And if she was alive, she wouldn't thank him for botching the job with Ligur to come swooping in like a bumbling white knight. She'd trusted him enough to confide about her grandmother and her destiny; he knew what she had riding on her continued work with Ligur. He could defeat the man in black, then go find her.

Resolved, he straightened to his very average height.

The man in black seemed to realize it wasn't a sign of concession. He waited, gaze fixed on Newt's face like a snake eyeing a mongoose.

"I can't let you go. Ligur gave me a job, and I need to see it through. But I've decided we'll do it my way."

"Your way?"

"We'll face each other like honest opponents," Newt said stoutly. "No tricks, no weapons. Just skill against skill alone."

"You mean… you'll put down your rock, and I'll put down my sword, and we'll try to kill each other like civilized people?" he said, his tone dripping with enough irony to forge _The Queen Elizabeth_ a new anchor.

Newt shrugged and tossed the boulder up and down in his hands a few times. "I could kill you now," he pointed out.

The man in black made an inarticulate sound in the back of his throat not unlike a swallowed scream and slowly began lowering his sword to the ground.

"No, no, you're… offering me a chance, and I'll take it," he said, and then tacked on, like he couldn't help himself, "Although you gotta admit the odds are _slightly_ in your favor at hand fighting."

Newt tossed the boulder away and loosened up his shoulders. "It's not like I can help being the strongest—it's in my blood. I don't even exercise."

The man in black shook out his own hands and then crouched with his hands up in a credible beginning wrestling stance. At least he had some experience, Newt thought, guiltily relieved.

"A strongman, is that it?" the man in black asked as they began to circle one another.

"Yeah," Newt admitted.

"Hold on, I think I've seen you before," the man said, pausing and tipping his head in a squint. "The Smash Things Guy. No. The Pummeler?"

Newt sighed. "The Pulverizer."

The man in black snapped and pointed at him. "Yes! The Pulverizer! Saw you at an exhibition once. You were…" He trailed off with the sorts of enthusiastic noises meant to compensate for a profound lack of actual positive descriptions. "Anyway, very strong, you are. What are you doing with a lowlife like Ligur?"

"None of your business," Newt said, and used the distraction to rush him.

The man in black oozed away, and they reset to circling one another.

"Did you get the boot?" the man in black guessed, wincing with what looked like a genuinely sympathetic curl to his lip. "I seem to remember your manager berating you mid-match for not looking mean enough."

"Ligur's my way back to good gigs."

"What, on the wrestling circuit?" the man said, pausing in his footwork in bafflement. He yelped when Newt lunged at him but managed to slither away again.

They began their third bout of wary circling. Newt was starting to think he would have to wait for the man to come to him with how slippery he was.

Well, if he liked to talk, and was distracted by it…

"I want to be of use to someone. Help protect people," he admitted. "Ligur says he can get me in with a brute squad or something once I do a few jobs for him—build my reputation as someone not to be trifled with."

"Mate, no offense, but you look like you apologize to the mosquitos you swat. Why are you going in for jobs like that? You're bloody strong! Could do all sorts with that."

Newt frowned. "Like what?"

The man in black shrugged expressively without lowering his hands from their grappling position. "Dunno. Professional stone crusher? Shake trees real hard to knock fruit loose? Could hand crank a mill? Or haul people up and down cliffs for a living, suppose. If you stuck with a circuit show you could, ah, throw kids into safety nets—carefully? You'd be dynamite in the blacksmithing trade, that's for certain—you could probably _be_ the anvil."

Newt gave these suggestions as much consideration as they deserved, which was not much at all.

"No, I've made a commitment," he said. "To Ligur, and to Anathema."

The man in black faltered in his circling a moment. "To witch girl?" he asked, voice falling. Newt wasn't to know this, but the man in black was already despairing over his attempts at temptation. This was because Newt couldn't hear how he sounded when he said Anathema's name, but to just about anyone else with even a jot of empathy, it was obvious where his true loyalties had latched.

"That's always been my problem," Newt went on, oblivious. "I don't commit." To his bit, to winning, to the job assigned to him. This he could do, though. For Anathema and her cause, he could stop the man in black.

"I really don't think commitment is the issue," the man in black grumbled. "Just because you're good at something doesn't mean you're suited for it. And it's not like incredible strength is a specialized skill."

He leapt forward suddenly, quick as a viper, and Newt snapped his arms together. He expected to feel the impact of another body against his, his arms compressing and squeezing around a writhing, hissing enemy. He was prepared to hang on to the bitter end, until the fight finally eked out and the man became gruesomely still.

What happened, however, was his arms closed around his own torso.

Newt stared, baffled, at his empty arms and the equally empty space in front of him. At the last second, the man in black had swerved and slunk away from a direct approach. It was only a moment of discombobulation, but it was all the man in black needed.

Newt felt the jarring thud of a body landing on his back. It wasn't enough to rock him off balance, but it was unexpected enough that he was too slow to reach up before a long arm snaked around his throat and even longer legs wrapped around his arms and torso. The man in black held Newt in a locked constrictor grip and squeezed for all he was worth.

Oh, this is definitely a good gimmick, Newt thought with a disconnected part of his mind as he worked on freeing his arms. It wasn't particularly difficult to do, given his strength, and the fact that the man in black only put up a token fight before loosening his legs. Except that the moment Newt's arms were free, the man in black rewrapped his legs around Newt's relatively vulnerable belly and resumed his squeezing, which _hurt_. It hurt enough that he left off trying to pry the man's arm off his neck to scrabble again at the tightening legs. They released again, quick, before Newt could get a proper grip. But just as soon as he brought his hands up to free his neck, they were back, this time the heel of the man in black's boot digging in low on his belly, dangerously close to his groin.

The instinctive panic of each new crushing squeeze short-circuited Newt's logic, which said he should focus first on the arm around his neck. Instead, he was swamped with the animalistic need to protect his softest parts. At the same time, the persistent lack of oxygen was making spots dance across his eyes and making it even harder to strategize.

Unlike before, the man in black wasn't wasting any energy on banter, something that Newt's increasingly frazzled mind might have been able to focus on. Now, he was deathly silent beyond the occasional grunt or hiss as he bent his entire, considerable will to keeping up enough pressure and misdirection to slowly but steadily incapacitate the strongman.

The disappointed pinch to Anathema's mouth, the worried creases between his mother's eyes, the snarling curl to every former manager's mouth flashed before Newt's eye even as his breath came in increasingly short, shallow pants. The thought of once again letting down those depending on him gave him enough of a jolt to try stumbling backward to ram the man in black against the nearby cliff face.

The impact made the man in black grunt, but if anything, the grip around Newt's windpipe grew even tighter.

A rushing noise like the distant sound of waves crashing on a shore filled Newt's ears as he felt his limbs grow heavy, then limp. Finally, they melted away altogether. He wasn't sure when his eyes slipped closed, but when he tried to open them, his vision was already so blacked out he couldn't tell the difference anyway.

This was it, he realized. No more chances. No last attempt to prove himself—to Anathema, to his family, to himself, to anyone. Just an ignoble death in service of a dubious goal on a dusty mountain path in the wrong country.

There is a small window of time between unconsciousness and death. As Newt's legs finally gave out from beneath him and he pitched forward, that instant happened. And it was in that instant that the man in black released Newt's neck and converted his grapple into assisting the strongman into a controlled fall, narrowly saving Newt's face from a rough meeting with the unforgiving ground.

"Shit, shit, shit," the man in black hissed, frantic, as he scrambled off the limp body.

He gingerly rolled Newt onto his side and pressed a gentle hand to the unconscious man's chest to double-check that his heart was still beating and lungs still very faintly billowing.

When he found the proof, the man wheezed out a breathy laugh that held absolutely no humor and sat back hard on his arse in the dirt.

He scrubbed a hand over his mouth. "Well… that was a thing."

After another long moment of sitting and watching Newt's unconscious form continuing to breathe, steadily if not strongly, he shook himself all over and climbed slowly to his feet. His steps were a little wobbly on overtaxed legs, but soon enough he had returned to the spot where his sword lay waiting on the ground.

He sheathed his sword after two jittery attempts. Then, he rolled back his shoulders, shook out his arms, and faced up the trail where two sets of footprints continued onward. His jaw tightened.

Two down and the hardest to go...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Spoilery content warning(s) for this chapter:** Anathema duels the man in black and in the process cuts his wrist and also gets her ankle kicked. Then, the man in black and Newt wrestle. In the process, the man in black gets Newt in a chokehold and holds it to the point of Newt falling unconscious. The scene is told from Newt's POV so there is some description of what it feels like / physiological reactions. If you need to skip the descriptions, start skimming when you reach the paragraph that starts "Oh, this is definitely a good gimmick" and you can pick back up at the paragraph that starts "This was it, he realized. No more chances."
> 
> **Fun facts about this adaption**
> 
>   * There are a few scenes I've been DYING to write for this adaptation because they practically write themselves. The conversation between Anathema and the man in black when he's climbing was one of them.
>   * While in the PB movie the man in black says he'd sooner destroy "a stained glass window," in the book it's "a da Vinci," and let me tell you how loud I shrieked when I was rereading the book in prep to write this chapter.
>   * The line about "oh you're right that's actually Inigo/Anathema they've just changed everything about them" is originally Fezzik's line in the book bc bless his heart he is very ready to let other people write his reality for him, but this means a lot of his lines also read as galaxy-brain sarcasm. In this case, the bastard energy was so high I had to give it to Aziraphale.
>   * Ngl the "I don't even exercise" line Fezzik has and imagining Newt also saying that unironically continues to fuel about 90% of my decision to make him the Fezzik character. But also, y'all, Y'ALL, in the book Fezzik has this whole backstory where he was forced to do wrestling and strong-work stuff because he's freakishly strong and he goes with it because it makes him feel useful and really that's all he's looking for is to be useful, BUT if he had his pick he'd like to be _a tinkerer_. I just T_T. These two affable, follower-type characters who desperately want to do a thing but their bodies just aren't made for it so they have to find something else instead. Gives me a lot of feels.
>   * I hope I didn't disappoint anyone looking for (and not finding) the line about masks, esp. since it's been a dark humor meme lately; I just couldn't do it, y'all.
> 



	6. The Battle of Wits & The Man in Black

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol, remember when I was nervous about posting a true WIP because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to keep to a consistent posting schedule, etc.? ~Here we aaaare. Real talk, though: I sign up for too many things that have deadlines and have also been struggling with, uh ( _gestures vaguely at everything_ ), so I've been fighting to keep up with even just the time-bound commitments the last few months, never mind this and a couple other unpublished WIPs I've been poking at. :') Which is all to say: thank you so much for your patience. I won't make any promises on a more consistent schedule, but I have been working on future chapters (chapter 7 is finally fully drafted). This story isn't even mostly dead _badum-tsh_.
> 
>  **Content Warning(s) for this chapter (see end notes for more details):** Kidnappers threatening harm to their captive, non-graphic violence including a non-graphic description of a person being cut, poisoning, minor character death

Aziraphale sat and fumed. Her dress, despite the best efforts of the coastal winds, was still damp enough that she was beginning to chafe. Her wrists were definitely starting to chafe, bound as they were in front of her with a knot of ropes that had been periodically used as a lead to drag her this way and that across the frontier. Now she was even deprived of sight, a blindfold tied securely over her eyes so that only the faintest sliver of light crept in. The boulder she was stranded on was also not nearly smooth enough to sit on for any length of time without bruising _something_ tender, but she thought it would be a while yet before she was able to move. She couldn't even squirm properly, with the flat of a dagger pressed warningly to her throat.

So, she sat as still as she was able and fumed.

The sound of footsteps approaching reached her shortly before Ligur called, close by her side, "Welcome."

The footsteps stopped. She could only assume it was the man in black. Ligur had pulled her down not too long ago with a grumbled, "Sit still or I'll slit your throat here and now and be done with it." Then she'd heard the rustle and metallic clanking of Ligur pulling things from the travel sack he'd taken from Newt.

"You've beaten my witch and my strongman," Ligur said, sounding as impressed as he was obviously annoyed.

"Seems like," a gruff voice said from a ways off.

"Now it is down to you, and it is down to me."

"Yep."

There was the sound of a few steps before the dagger was pressing much more insistently against the thin skin of her throat. Aziraphale couldn't help an instinctive startled inhale of breath as fear spiked through her. She didn't count herself as someone easy to scare, but there was sharp steel far too close to her carotid artery and she couldn't _see_.

"If you wish her dead, by all means, keep moving," Ligur purred.

The footsteps stopped instantly.

"Better," Ligur approved. "Now, let's discuss what you're about, hmm? I know what it is you're doing—you're trying to steal that which I've already rightfully stolen—which is extremely annoying, but it would be a funny old world if thieves and assassins went about trusting each other, wouldn't it? No, what I want to know is _why_ you're trying to steal her and _how you knew_."

"Let me explain," the man in black said, his voice ingratiating as he stepped forward.

"You are killing her," Ligur snarled, pressing the dagger hard enough that Aziraphale felt the stinging burn of a hairline cut open up. She swallowed her scream as she fought to keep still, and it came out strangled and embarrassingly frightened.

There was the sound of several shuffling footsteps moving backward. "Let me explain," the man tried again, voice a little pitchy with either stress or the added distance.

"I do not want explanations," Ligur said, "I want facts."

The dagger eased away slightly, and Aziraphale could breathe again.

"I have come to take the princess," the man admitted.

"For ransom?"

A shrug was entirely audible in the man's voice when he said, "As a ransom item, she has great value." This struck Aziraphale as not really an answer to Ligur's question, but it was a fact, so she supposed the man must be adhering to the exact letter of Ligur's admonition.

"How did you find us? No one but me, my crew, and two others knew of this plot, all of whom I can either vouch for their exact whereabouts or who don't have any interest in thwarting this plan."

Ligur sounded absolutely certain, which piqued Aziraphale's latent curiosity. Not that she'd had much time to consider the whys and hows about their mysterious follower, what with all the dashing about and immediate and extreme danger to her person, but it was curious that this man in black had been pursuing them before anyone should have been able to.

"I was following her," came the stiff admission.

Aziraphale's blood ran cold.

She'd always scoffed at Sandalphon's snooty offers to send a royal guard with her when she left the castle, but perhaps the Master of the Guard had known what he was about. It truly had not occurred to her that anyone might seek to harm her; she was still relatively unknown, and what notoriety she'd gained since her debut was largely benign-to-enthusiastic acceptance—a fact Gabriel crowed about no less than twice a day most days. She also couldn't credit that there were too many other people clamoring for the position, given Gabriel's not-so-secret reputation and her firsthand experience with the man. And yet... here was not one but _two_ kidnap plots she'd run afoul of in the same day.

The answer seemed to satisfy Ligur, though. She could hear the creak and rustle of his clothes as he relaxed his position on the next boulder over.

"Well, whatever your designs are on ransoming her, you can forget them. I have very specific instructions about what to do with her, and they don't involve ransom, they involve death. And since I have a lot riding on the success of this job, I'm not up to negotiate, mate," Ligur said stoutly.

Aziraphale resisted the urge to turn her head toward her kidnapper in surprise. _Instructions_ —that was new. He'd said he'd been hired, but it was sounding more and more like he wasn't the brains behind any part of this operation. Just who was pulling the puppet strings?

"All right, but I'd counter that I've gone to a great deal of time and effort and personal sacrifice to get at her, for my own ends, and I'll be pretty pissed if I fail now, so if she stops breathing anytime soon, you're very likely to catch the same fatal illness, _mate_ ," the man in black growled, and Aziraphale had no trouble believing his sincerity. If he didn't get his way, he would not hesitate to kill Ligur for the inconvenience.

She shivered. Well, it seemed like today's theme of out of the frying pan and into a whole series of fires would continue. Still, the man in black was a largely unquantified element. If it was just money he was after, that she could reliably deliver. So, even if Ligur wasn't open to negotiating with him, she was. There was a time and a place, though, and with Ligur's twitchy, dagger-filled hand still uncomfortably close to her neck, now wasn't it.

"Then we're at an impasse," Ligur said. "I can't let you take the princess without risking my job, and you can't take her from me without risking losing your ransom, and _I_ can't risk you trying to take her without risking my own life, and _you_ can't—"

"I get the picture," the man in black cut in sharply. "Mutually assured destruction, is it? Then how about we arrange for the least amount of collateral damage for each of us, whichever way it turns out."

Ligur hummed thoughtfully. "I'm listening."

"A physical fight runs too much risk of me destroying you, or you destroying her, yeah? We both lose our chance at profit then. In that case, I challenge you to a battle of wits."

Ligur perked up. "For the princess?"

"You read my mind."

"To the death?" Ligur confirmed, sounding far too excited.

"Yeah."

"Very well, I accept," Ligur said magnanimously.

"Terrific," the man in black drawled. "Pour the wine."

Aziraphale felt her eyebrows leap up on her face in surprise. Were they really going to open up a bottle while they tried to kill each other? How brutally civilized.

She heard the muffled pop of a cork being thumbed off and the slosh of wine being poured into two goblets.

"Oh, come over, then. I imagine the wine has something to do with the battle?" Ligur guessed.

The man in black's footsteps approached at a leisurely pace, and there was a rustle of cloth and a faint grunt as the other man presumably sat down a much closer distance away.

"Got it in one," he confirmed. Closer, without having to half shout his words, Aziraphale found his voice strangely compelling. A fine quality for a kidnapper, she thought.

"What's that?" Ligur said, and Aziraphale heard them lean closer to each other over whatever stone Ligur had set the goblets onto.

"Give it a sniff, but absolutely not enough to get it up your nose, and _do not_ get any on your skin," the man in black cautioned.

"I don't smell anything," Ligur said, puzzled.

"What you don't smell is iocaine powder. It's odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid, and it is _fantastically_ deadly," the man in black said. "Do you want to do the honors?"

Ligur sneered audibly. "Nice try. My dagger doesn't leave her throat until this is finished. You do it."

"Sure," the man in black said, and she heard the ringing scrape of the goblets being lifted from stone.

Ligur chuckled as the man in black busied himself on the other side of the boulder. After a long minute, she heard the click of the goblets being set back down and, after a second, the hollow clatter of some small container being tossed onto the stone as well.

"There we are," the man in black said. "Where is the poison? The battle of wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both drink—at the same time, mind, no funny business about waiting to swallow—and see who is right and who is dead. Go on, take your best guess."

"Guess?" Ligur snarled, sounding mortally offended. "I am a highly trained assassin. I've studied the craft for _decades_. I know more about what motivates human behavior and deception and the fine art of murder than any man this side of the Atlantic. I don't _guess_."

"Of course not," the man in black crooned, patently patronizing. "My mistake. You'll deduce it, naturally. Probably already know where it is."

"Exactly," Ligur exclaimed. "It's easy to know. All I had to do is look at what I know of you and think, where is a man such as yourself likely to put the poison, in your own cup or the cup of your enemy?"

"Well, go on then, which is it?" the man asked affably.

"Only a fool would put poison into his own cup, so I can't choose the wine in front of you."

"Oh, absolutely, well, done, stellar logic," the man said in tones so enthusiastic that Aziraphale was immediately suspicious. Ligur was too, it seemed.

"But you must know I'm not a fool—"

"Course, course—criminal mastermind, you," the man in black cut in seriously.

Ligur drew up short, but, not able to argue with anything the man had said on its face, went on. "Yeah. So. You know I'm not a fool, and only a fool would reach for what he is given in a game as deadly as this one, so I can't take the wine in front of me neither."

"Solid reasoning, there."

"It _is_ ," Ligur said, sounding remarkably defensive for someone who was having their every thought validated. "But as a skilled assassin, I've also studied poisons, and iocaine powder is distilled from serpent's venom, the most duplicitous creatures in all of heaven, earth, or hell—" The man in black sniggered. "— _and with which_ you obviously keep company," Ligur insisted with a shrill emphasis that had Aziraphale frowning in confusion. "So clearly I can't trust you, which means I can't choose the wine in front of you. But, you would be expecting a trained assassin like me to know the origin of the poison and make the connection to your own curse—I'll bet you would have counted on it, or you would have tried to hide it better—therefore I can't choose the wine in front of me."

"Truly, you have a dizzying intellect," the man in black drawled, some of the overdone earnestness slipping from his tone so it was more transparently mocking.

"You beat my strongman, which means you must yourself be exceptionally strong," Ligur pressed, getting properly agitated. "You could be counting on your strength to save you, so naturally I can't choose the cup in front of you." He shifted restlessly on the stone. "But you also bested my witch, which means you've studied—the sword or the occult or both—and in doing so you must have learned enough about man's frailties to know a poison like this can't be overcome by brute strength. You'd want to put it as far away from yourself as possible, so I cannot choose the wine in front of me."

"Do you think if you keep tossing theories out you'll get lucky and trick me into giving something away?" the man in black asked with calm curiosity. "Because I can promise you, I won't blink firsssst."

"I don't need you to blink, you snake!" Ligur snarled. You've already given everything away. I know where the poison is!"

"Oh yeah? Then let's drink! Which is your cup, hmm?" the man sneered back.

"Mine is—what in the nine circles of hell is that?" Ligur cried, body stiffening in shock beside her.

"What? Where?" from the fading note in the man in black's voice, Aziraphale thought he must be looking over his shoulder.

She felt the air currents as Ligur moved quickly while the other man's back was turned. To what end, she couldn't be sure, but she could make an educated guess. Just as she was fairly certain she knew the man in black's trick. But since she still felt that, on balance, her fate with the man in black wasn't nearly as mortal as it was with Ligur, she kept her peace and sat quietly. If nothing else, Ligur had swiftly returned his hand and, presumably, the dagger to hover near her neck. It wouldn't do her any good to try to warn of anything if all it would earn her was a premature exsanguination.

"I don't see anything," the man in black muttered.

"I could have sworn I saw something," Ligur said, and then quickly, "No matter, no matter. As I was saying, let's drink—mine is the cup in front of me, and yours the one in front of you."

"Hmm… all right. Cheers, mate."

She heard the scratch and slurp of the men each taking their goblets and a drink of wine.

When the goblets both clanked back down on top of the boulder, the man in black said with relish, "You guessed wrong."

Ligur threw his head back and laughed.

"What's so funny?" the man in black demanded.

"You are," Ligur snarled, "you flash bastard. I switched the glasses when your back was turned. You fell for the oldest trick in the book! Never trust an assassin! If you'd properly studied your craft, maybe you wouldn't be a dead man right now. But since you care more about style over substance—iocaine, really? You had to pick something that matched your eyes, you great _twat_ —soon you'll be burning for eternity in hell, squirming and crawling on your belly. Say hello to the devil for me!" he crowed and then began to laugh again, great, huge belly laughs that to Aziraphale's ears verged on hysteria.

Then, at the high end of a screaming laugh, he toppled backward, dead.

Aziraphale, who had been half expecting it, leaned as far away from him as she dared and just prayed the dagger wouldn't drop right down into her arm or leg. At the same time, she heard the goblets clatter as the man in black lunged across the boulders with a garbled curse and apparently swatted Ligur's falling hand away from her.

"Buggering hell, are you nicked?" the gruff voice asked her, and suddenly the strange man was practically on top of her, tugging her blindfold free. The overwhelming scent of spilled wine swamped her senses, as did the sight of a pair of truly shocking bright yellow snake eyes staring at her intently from the depths of a black mask.

"Oh! The snake business wasn't hyperbole," she exclaimed and then shook her head. "Apologies, that was rude. Just took me by surprise, that's all. And, no, apart from the first cut, I'm unharmed."

The man stared at her intently for a stretched moment longer, unusual eyes raking over her face as if he was looking for something, before he scowled and produced a dagger of his own to begin sawing at the ropes binding her wrists.

"Well, let's keep it that way," he muttered as he finally freed her hands and then hauled her to her feet with a firm grip to her elbow.

At his insistent tugging, Aziraphale pulled back. "Hold a moment, if you please. I need to gather myself."

He gave a short sigh but nodded and stepped over to give Ligur's body a quick look over, rifling through the dead man's pockets and bag and relieving him of his coin purse and a larger bag that Aziraphale knew contained some additional food and drink.

"You poisoned both cups, didn't you," she observed as she gingerly chafed at her wrists.

The man cut her a glance out of the corner of his eye and nodded. "I've spent the last few years developing an immunity. Seemed like a good trick to have up my sleeve. How did you know?"

She shrugged. "You were baiting him from the start—expertly, might I add. It seemed to me only someone very confident or very intent on keeping the conversation on a very particular path—or both—would dare to do so in such a deadly contest. I did consider that you hadn't poisoned either cup and instead planned to catch him unawares while he was gloating, but that seemed to leave too many variables."

"Clever," the man observed as he straightened and shouldered the bag. "Come on, princess, we've a ways to go, and not much time."

"Where do you intend to take me?"

He looked at her incredulously. "Away from the dead body? That's all you need know for the moment." He reached out and grasped her forearm to begin tugging her along behind him. He started at a brisk walk and then, when she didn't put up any resistance, a jog away from Ligur's body and further across the open frontier and deeper into Guilder.

Aziraphale found the actions incredibly curious. "Do you mean to ransom me to Guilder and not Florin?" she asked when they'd stopped a moment to catch their breaths. She wasn't sure what to think of that possibility. She didn't think Gabriel was likely to forestall a war just because she was alive and not dead, if she was in his enemy's stronghold. But there was still a chance war could be held off if she was able to send him assurances. Maybe she could take the opportunity to talk sense to the Guilder royal house.

"What?" the man asked, sounding flummoxed, before scowling. "I'm not ransoming you to anyone. Ligur jumped to that conclusion all on his own. No, I'm here to very much kidnap you."

Aziraphale pulled her arm free of his grasp and took several large steps back. "Oh, I'm afraid I can't agree to that."

"I think you're missing the point of a kidnapping," he said, impatient.

"You don't understand, I _need_ to return to the palace—it's very important. Whatever money you wish in recompense, I'm sure it can be arranged. The prince is quite rich."

"Ohhh, eager to run back into the arms of your lover, are you?" the man sneered with a sudden and quite alarming amount of vitriol.

"Eager to return to my work," she disagreed mildly, not wanting the conversation to escalate. "It just so happens that my work requires being engaged to the prince."

"Oh, so you admit you don't love your fiancé?" the man taunted.

"He knows I do not love him."

"Are not capable of love, you mean," the man spat.

Later, Aziraphale would chalk up her reaction as the natural conclusion to what had been a very, very long day that had started with a decades-dead witch poking at a still-fresh wound.

In any event, she saw red.

She lunged forward and grabbed the man by the front of his shirt. When he yelped and fumbled for his sword, she drew his own dagger on him, pressed the tip to his belly, and yanked on the fistful of fabric she held to pull him off balance.

"I have loved more deeply than a killer like you could ever dream," she said with preternatural calm.

The man's eyes were very wide and very yellow from this close. She let just a fraction of her simmering rage and grief well up into her expression before she shoved him away from her and turned, striking off west. He stumbled back, arms windmilling for a moment, before he recovered and stomped after her.

"Oi, just where do you think you're going!" he demanded, skirting around her to block her path. He hadn't drawn his sword, but his hand hovered over the hilt as he eyed his dagger in her hand warily.

"To the nearest coast where a boat might reasonably dock. The prince will have sent people to find me. I intend to meet them so I may return to Florin and my work."

"And your prince," the man insisted.

Aziraphale breathed out sharply through her nose. "You are awfully hung up on that point. Yes, I am engaged to be married to the prince. No, I do not love him. It is a business arrangement."

She kept walking, or stomping, rather, further west. The man trotted to keep up with her.

"How very cold of you, _princess_ ," he taunted.

"I never pretended it isn't."

"Must be a hell of a business arrangement," he pressed.

Well, considering her life had been dangled before her, and then the lives and welfare of two entire countries, she rather thought so. But this snake-eyed man was really beginning to grate on her nerves, and didn't seem all that inclined to kill her, so she really didn't feel like placating him further. Instead, she made an agreeable noise and then had the mean pleasure of seeing him scowl at her in frustration.

"You weren't breaking any promises in the process, hmm?" he asked leadingly. "Didn't leave any previous fiancés in the lurch by hopping into a new relationship?"

Oh, that was beyond the pale.

Aziraphale whirled on the man and advanced with deadly intent, dagger held at the ready as fresh adrenaline sparked across her nerves. The man scuttled backward awkwardly in the face of her momentum, but his mouth was set in a mulish line, and his hand was white-knuckling the hilt of his sabre.

"Who are you?" Aziraphale asked with awful precision. "What do you know?"

"I know enough," he hedged.

They were coming up along the steep edge of a ravine. Perfect.

"I beg to differ. If you knew enough, you would know I had no promises to break when the prince demanded I marry him. If you knew enough, you would realize that, though I had love before, it ended quite terribly and quite permanently. If you knew enough, you would understand how very extremely foolish it is to taunt me about the single worst thing that has ever happened to me. And yet, here we are. So, mysterious stranger who dresses all in black, knows his way around a ship, has demonic eyes, and seems to have no qualms about stealing from a man he just killed in cold blood, _who are you?_ "

By this point, she'd backed him to the very edge of the gorge. He stumbled at the edge of the incline, cornered, and held his hands up placatingly. For some reason, he still hadn't drawn his sword. It was strange, but this whole day had been strange, so it wasn't something Aziraphale was interested in examining at the moment, since his foolishness was only to her advantage.

"Look, uh, princess," he said, tone suddenly coming over much softer and reasonable. "Maybe I, er, leapt to some conclusions about some things."

"Shut up," she advised and calmly held the dagger to his throat. "If you won't answer the question, perhaps I should take a _guess_. Unlike our erstwhile assassin, I'm _very_ good at guessing."

"Hnngh," the man returned and flexed his hands more imploringly. "Look, I can explain."

"I've heard how you 'explain,'" she snapped. "Don't think to bamboozle me. You are the Dread Pirate Anthony."

"Er."

"Am I wrong?"

"Well, not technically, no, but—"

She stepped in close and grabbed him by the front of his shirt again. When he tried to grab for her arm, she slammed her right foot down on top of his left, planted her left foot between his legs, and hip-checked him. The result was almost like a forward dip in dance; all of his balance held captive by his shirt in her fist and her foot anchoring one of his to the ground. Dancing lessons hadn't been _completely_ useless.

"Wait," he yelped, scrabbling at her arms while trying not to nick his chin on the dagger.

"You killed my love," she said over him, voice shivering with rage. "And you can die too for all I care."

She shoved him at the same time she stepped back, so that nothing was between him and the steep edge of the ravine but gravity.

"Aziraphale," he shrieked, reaching for her desperately, eyes wide and beseeching, just before he disappeared from sight.

She closed her eyes, a few angry tears slipping free as she did, but forced herself to wait and listen as the man tumbled down the slope. The risk of him outright dying was very low, but she needed to know, when he reached the bottom, whether he'd be physically able to mount a spirited pursuit or if she could take her time getting to the coast.

It was because she was so focused that she was able to make out the garbled words amidst the grunts and thuds as he tumbled down.

"As… you… wish…!"

Her eyes flew open; her heart stopped.

Aziraphale stumbled to the edge of the ravine and looked down. The man was still skidding and rolling, but the fall had ripped the cloth covering his head loose, and a long braid of hair in an achingly familiar shade of red streamed behind him like the tail of a meteor.

( _"I knew it! I_ knew _it—I told you it was Crowley. Didn't I say?"_

 _"Shhhhh!!!"_ )

So many words and feelings suddenly surged from deep within her, the whirlpool of her grief suddenly rumbling back up like a geyser, that they clogged in her throat for a hideous few seconds as she watched her love, her Crowley, her very-much-not-dead-almost-fiancé—who she'd _shoved_ down a _ravine—_ roll to his or her possible doom. Then, it all came bursting forth:

"Oh, _fuck!_ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Spoilery content warnings for this chapter:**
> 
>   * Ligur's continued habit of threatening to kill Aziraphale if she doesn't do as he says.
>   * Ligur threatens Aziraphale with a dagger to the throat, which shallowly breaks skin at one point.
>   * In the battle of wits, the man in black tricks Ligur into thinking only one cup of wine is poisoned; in actuality, both are poisoned. Ligur dies quickly and non-graphically, but the man in black is immune through the power of book/movie logic and therefore is unharmed.
>   * Aziraphale shoves "the man in black" over the edge of a ravine with the intention to badly injure him; only after she does so does she realize it's actually Crowley.
> 

> 
> The TV show says I can have two (2) f-bombs and still keep it rated T-for-Teen.


	7. The Hunt & The Race Along the Ravine Floor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eyyyyy, (relatively) quick update! Thought I'd put y'all out of your misery after that wee cliffhanger. We've officially hit the end of my store of predrafted content, but I'm wrapping up a few time-sensitive projects, so I plan on hopping on this more consistently again. :D 
> 
> Thanks as ever to LeilaKalomi for the beta!
> 
> **Content Warning(s) for this chapter (see end notes for more details):** Discovery of the previously killed minor character's body

Uriel paced the ground with measured precision, hands folded in a uniform knot at the small of their back. To Prince Gabriel's gaze, it looked like just a bunch of rock and dirt, although even he could make out a whole storm of boot prints ranging all over the area. To his Grand Master of the Hunt's keen eye, however, he knew a whole picture was likely unfolding. If only it didn't take so long to decipher. The midmorning sun was merciless this high up on the cliffs. Only the harsh wind off the sea was making it bearable.

When his horse shifted idly for the third time in as many minutes, Gabriel got fed up and opened his mouth to demand Uriel hurry things along. He just needed the big picture, not a dissertation.

"Uriel, what are you seeing?" Count Michael said smoothly, preempting Gabriel.

He squinted at her, wondering if it had been deliberate, but she was focused on where Uriel was now squatting by a pile of loose, frayed rope at the base of a gnarled tree.

"There was," Uriel announced, complete with a dramatic pause, "a mighty duel."

"Well, obviously," Gabriel said. "All the boot prints everywhere. Of course there was a duel. Who won?"

Uriel leveled him with a stony look out of the corner of their eye before rising to their feet.

"The loser was detained briefly—tied to this tree—but they appear to have gone off alone in that direction," they said, pointing where Gabriel could see a set of solitary boot prints leading along the northern edge of the cliffs.

"I don't care about the loser," Gabriel said with what he thought was extreme patience. "The winner would have followed the princess—" he tipped his chin up and pitched his voice to its most melodious, "—and only the princess matters."

"Of course, my lord," Uriel said, tone as flat as ever. "The victor appears to have followed these other tracks." They pointed to what in Gabriel's eyes looked like just a mess of disturbed earth. "The princess was in that party."

"You're sure?" he pressed.

"Sire, please do not doubt my ability to recognize the princess's tread." Uriel's voice was still mostly monotone but with just a sliver of snit shading it.

"Sure, yeah, absolutely," Gabriel said, because Uriel in a snit was formidable. They could track a snake through marshlands and bring down a falcon on a cloudy day. Not someone Gabriel wanted on his bad side. It was the whole reason he'd appointed them to his personal staff to begin with. You didn't leave talent like that hanging about; it needed to be squarely under your thumb.

"How many were with the princess?" Count Michael asked.

"Two," Uriel said. Then, more cryptically, eyes boring into Michael's, they added, "I believe the victor was not of the original party. They're an unknown element."

Gabriel glanced between the two of them, wondering if this was something he needed to know about, or if he could let them keep their secrets. He was a big fan of plausible deniability, after all.

"So, we have someone else who is going after the princess?" he asked, deciding that, on balance, he needed to remind them who was the boss around here.

"An interloper," Michael agreed, sounding grim.

"Someone we should be worried about?"

"Time will tell, my lord."

Gabriel didn't like the tight press of her lips, but it wasn't like there was any other information to be had here, and there were others in their party to consider. Trusted soldiers handpicked by Sandalphon, to be sure, but no one who would know about the Great Plan.

"Then let's get going," he said, and the entire force rode out along the trail left by the princess, her kidnappers, and the mysterious interloper.

When they reached the ledge where the grappling match had occurred, Uriel didn't even bother dismounting.

"Someone has beaten a strongman," they said and sketched out a path with their hand. "The strongman has run away... that direction."

When Gabriel glanced over at Michael, she looked as politely disbelieving as he felt. That was something, at least.

"And the princess?" he asked.

Uriel tipped their chin at a slightly less muddled path of tracks leading further into the Guilder frontier. "Those are her tracks there. It is the interloper that has followed her and her remaining captor. She is alive."

"Well, that's good news!" Gabriel said, and glanced around at the other guardsmen in their group. They looked, disconcertingly, like they were genuinely relieved. Gabriel knew, objectively, that this was a good thing—the people should love their princess—but it was a little annoying to see how quickly Aziraphale had wormed her way into the country's heart.

Uriel struck out again, and the group followed her, hooves pounding properly dramatic as the trail opened from the switchback of the cliffs and into the open plains of the Guilder frontier. Gabriel relished the wind in his hair, the feeling of urgent command as he, for all intents and purposes, led the dramatic pursuit.

When they came across the aborted picnic and the body, the mood ratched from urgent to outright charged. A low muttering started up from the broader force, and a few horses danced nervously at the telegraphed tension. One keen look from Michael banked the unease somewhat.

Uriel dismounted and checked the body.

"He's been dead for at least an hour, maybe more," they announced.

To Gabriel's surprise, Michael dismounted as well. She went to stand beside the body as well, staring down at it intently, for all her expression was devoid of emotion.

"Count Michael?" he asked.

"My lord?" she returned automatically, but her tone was distant.

Prince Gabriel was by no means an empathetic man, but he knew his inner circle and trusted them about as much as he was able to trust anyone. Therefore, he took a subtle breath and set aside his annoyance at not getting one hundred percent of her attention automatically. Something was amiss.

"What's on your mind?" he asked, keeping his tone pleasant and neutral, mindful, as ever, of their audience.

Her hand, which had been left in a loose curl at her side, clutched at nothing. "Just thinking of back channels, my lord."

He looked down at the body again and then back at Michael's aggressively blank face. "We don't have back channels, Count Michael," he reminded her, as gentle as he knew how to be.

"No, we don't," she agreed quietly.

Uriel came up to stand at Michael's side, their shoulders just barely brushing. "Count Michael, if I could make use of your expertise," they said in an undertone.

"Yes, of course," Michael said, and turned away.

Uriel pointed out the upended wine goblets and the empty phial of white powder on the flat rock. After a long moment, Michael circled around, observing, and then pulled out a handkerchief to pick up the phial. She sniffed at it delicately.

"Iocaine," she said, voice brittle. "I'd bet my life on it."

Gabriel whistled low, impressed. "That's serious stuff. So, this interloper. A real player on the board?"

Michael nodded to him sharply and let the phial drop to the ground.

"Well, the mission doesn't change," he said stubbornly. "Some unknown, dangerous person has the princess and has absconded with her."

He looked to Uriel, who gave an approving nod and pointed the way where now just two sets of prints led further into the Guilder frontier.

"There will be great suffering in Guilder if she dies," he promised gallantly and spurred his horse onward. The guard would follow him, which would give Michael and Uriel a moment to confer on… whatever needed conferring on. The trail was clear enough for now; they would catch up.

Feeling inspired, he pulled his hunting horn from its hook on his saddle and trumpeted their continued pursuit.

By the time he pulled up to the edge of the ravine, he was regretting the decision to go on ahead, just a little bit. Even he could see that the trail ended here, and that both the interloper and the princess must have gone over, but he didn't want to push forward on a hunt without his Grand Master to set the course.

Luckily, Uriel and Michael were only a few short minutes behind. After just a quick glance, Uriel was swearing softly under their breath and Michael was looking grim.

"What?" Gabriel demanded. "I would have thought this would be good news! The ravine is pretty steep. I wouldn't think they'd try to climb back out for a while, which means we know exactly where they'll flush out."

"Exactly, my lord," Michael agreed. "That is the problem."

"The ravine opens straight into the Fire Swamp," Uriel added without prompting.

"The _Fire Swamp_?" Gabriel echoed, incredulous. "This interloper is taking Princess Aziraphale into the Fire Swamp?"

"We'll station a small force at the entrance at the beginning of the ravine," Michael said briskly. "In case they double-back. The rest of us can circle around."

"Are you serious?" Gabriel demanded. "They must be panicking into error, going into the Fire Swamp."

Count Michael tipped her head to concede the possibility. "Yes, but this interloper has so far proved themselves a master fencer, stronger than a strongman, and an expert in the use of iocaine powder. They may be counting on their various talents to allow them to brave the perils of the swamp."

Uriel frowned. "Should we send a force into the swamp directly?"

Michael looked to Gabriel, which he took to mean that she didn't have a strong recommendation one way or the other. Ugh, a _decision_.

Gabriel considered. "No," he said finally. "It might be a trap." The swamp was deadly enough that it oddly enough made a perfect spot for an ambush, provided you had the right team. And if this interloper was as superhuman as Michael's summation suggested, they might just be able to command that kind of loyalty.

"You think it's a trap," Uriel stated, completely devoid of inflection.

Gabriel cast a glance their way, but you couldn't call someone out on tone when they scrupulously didn't have one.

"I always think everything is a trap, until proven otherwise," he said instead and then fixed her with a beady eye. "Which is why I'm still alive."

"Very wise, sire," Count Michael agreed smoothly, and they were off again.

* * *

Aziraphale did her best to keep her footing as she sidestepped her way down the embankment as fast as possible without twisting an ankle. Eventually, though, the slick grass, patches of skree, and the smooth soles of her riding boots got the better of her. She slid in an ungainly tumble of skirts down the final quarter length to the bottom of the ravine and had to throw herself to the side to avoid rolling right on top of where Crowley was splayed out awkwardly at the bottom.

"Crowley?" she called frantically as soon as she had her breath back. She righted herself enough to scoot over to his side and begin running trembling, assessing hands over his body, checking for obvious injury. "Oh, answer me, you impossible _idiot_. Are you hurt?"

"Hey, ow," Crowley grumbled and feebly reached to grasp her hands, tucking them close to his chest both to bring her closer and to stop the frantic patting. "M'fine, just bruised. And I think it's a bit of a pot-kettle situation on the idiot front."

Aziraphale freed a hand so she could reach up and tug off the mask, which had stubbornly remained even after the head cloth had come free. And there was Crowley's beloved face finally bared to her, both familiar and not. Time, age, and stress had left deep creases around his mouth and across his forehead. And most shocking of all, of course:

"My dear, you never once let me see you without your glasses," she scolded breathlessly. She traced her thumbs softly along the delicate skin under his eyes, puffy with exhaustion. "If you had, I don't doubt I would have recognized you on the spot. They're quite singular."

Crowley huffed a shaky laugh. A smirk was tugging at his mouth, but she could see now, without the barrier of mask or glasses, the banked fear in his eyes. "Not too weird, then?"

In answer, she bent over him and pressed a trembling kiss to each eyelid. "My darling, I love them. I love _you_. Oh! Forgive me, dearest, I didn't think to ask: Everyone's been calling you the man in black, but is that it? Or is it the woman in black?"

Crowley's eyes brimmed with sudden tears. "Oh, um, yeah, man in black."

"I'm so sorry I didn't ask earlier," she said, petting over the beloved lines of his face, old and new.

The apology earned her a damp laugh and Crowley grabbing one of her hands to press a fierce kiss to her palm. "I didn't tell you, either. I was… a little cross. Mixed up in my own head about things."

" _You_ were cross!" she shrieked and reared up to shove gently at his chest. "You let me think you were _dead_! If anyone should be cross, it should be me."

He flung his arms out to the side. "I wasn't dead, though!" he protested a little desperately. "I told you I would come for you. Why did you… why didn't you wait for me?"

Aziraphale's eyes welled up even as she scowled down at him. "There was an official letter! And the news was all over. Everyone was so certain—no survivors! And I… and I _believed_ it, Crowley! I thought—you were _dead_."

"Hey, hey, no, come here," Crowley said, pulling at her arms and drawing her down to lay across his chest as tears streamed stubbornly down her face. "I'm sorry—I'm _so_ sorry. I couldn't send word. There's… well, there's more going on with all of this—I can tell you about it later."

Aziraphale let herself be cradled and coddled passively for a long moment before she gave up the ghost and wriggled until they were completely entwined, faces buried in each other's necks, arms banded around backs, and legs tangled. She spread her hands wide over Crowley's back and felt the rightness of her lover's bones under her palms, the steady thrum of his heart beating _alive_ , _alive_ , _alive_.

That final bit of proof was what made the whole thing incontrovertibly real for her. She sobbed. Once. Twice. Then let out an awful hiccuping wail that she muffled into the rough fabric covering Crowley's shoulder.

Crowley squeezed her tighter in response. "Sorry, sorry, I'm here, sorry," he chanted, voice choked and warbling before he cut off abruptly and just trembled and pressed frantic kisses to her shoulder and the side of her neck as they both rode out the storm.

Eventually, the worst of it passed, and Aziraphale was able to draw in a few steadying breaths to get herself back under control. There were practicalities to think of, after all. Like the prince's rescue party, which was surely looking for her.

She drew back a little in Crowley's arms and was arrested again by the sight of his dear face. Once again she found herself running curious fingers over his nose and cheeks and brow, mapping the changes. Because he did look different, and sound different, even if it was only a little bit. Crowley in turn raised a calloused hand to cup the side of her face. If she wasn't sure he'd have turned it right back around on her, she might have teased him for the besotted expression on his face.

"I should have known you were too slippery to be done in by pirates," she murmured.

He arranged his face in serious lines. "Pirates—or death, for that matter—cannot stop true love. All they can do is delay it for a while."

Aziraphale rolled her eyes. "Five _years_ , Crowley—"

"Yeah, okay, fair enough, I was a bit tardy. But, listen—" He brought up his other hand so he could gently guide her head down until their foreheads were pressed together tight. "I made you a promise once, right? And it took me a while, but I kept it, didn't I?" He tipped his chin up so he could press the words to her mouth in an almost kiss: "I will always come for you," he whispered and then sealed their mouths over the renewed promise.

( _"Yes, all right, next bit, please," Theresa said briskly._

_The newest edition to the nightly reading, Sister Mary, leaned around Grace's far side to glower at Theresa. "Oi!"_

_"It's my bed you lot are sitting on, isn't it? I won't have you stirring up lustful thoughts right where I'll be getting my rest shortly."_

_"It's really not that—well, they make it a little clearer later—though it does remain mostly subtext—but Aziraphale and Crowley aren't really fashioned that way," Mary tried._

_"Is it enough ooey-gooey, lovey-dovey treacle to give me heartburn?"_

_"Well, with your... tolerance—"_

_"Next. Bit."_ )

* * *

The distant sound of hunting horns roused them a short time later.

Aziraphale wrenched herself away from Crowley's mouth and sat upright, straining to hear from which direction the sound was coming from.

"S'that your pig fiance?" Crowley asked, sounding far too relaxed and pleased with the world from where he was still comfortably sprawled on his back on the bottom slope of the ravine.

"More likely Uriel, his Grand Master of the Hunt. I doubt he would come directly."

"You don't think he'd come to rescue you personally?" he asked, sounding indignant on her behalf.

Aziraphale favored him with a pitying look. "My dear, I did tell you it was a political arrangement. And doing things himself _really_ isn't Prince Gabriel's style. That's part of why I need to get back. If I don't continue my work untangling these prophecies, no one else is going to. And I've come too far to see our country embroiled in a senseless war—not if I can stop it."

Crowley looked stricken. "What do you mean? You're not going to come with me?"

Aziraphale sighed and brushed a lock of hair back away from his face. "I will, once I can get this prophecy business sorted. It might be a bit of a trick to convince the prince to find a new princess, and to let me continue accessing the royal library if I'm no longer destined to be part of the royal household, but… Well, they don't like me very much. I'm sure they'd be glad to be well shot of me. But it will be a delicate business. I don't think it can be done from the decks of a pirate ship."

Crowley groaned and rolled up to sitting as well. He slumped his shoulders in defeat for a moment before turning to cast a rueful yellow gaze at her. "You really think he'll listen to you? He seems like a real piece of work, from what I've seen and heard."

"Well… I have to try, don't I? I can't just leave when I know the work I'm doing could mean the difference between war and peace. And if he won't listen to reason about the marriage bit, well… I'll just… flee, I suppose."

She forced herself to smile confidently. Judging by Crowley's skeptical expression, she wasn't pulling it off very well.

"So, what, I go back to my ship, you go back to your castle, and I just… wait to hear from you?" he asked, dubious.

"Well… yes, I suppose. I can't imagine it would go well if Uriel and their party find you with me. I'm worried they might shoot first and ask questions later. You do look a bit disreputable in this getup, my dear," she said as she fretfully plucked at his black sleeve.

Crowley shook his head. "This isn't going to work. Aziraphale, they're not going to let you go. The prince may not love you, but the people do. And if the work you're doing is that important…" He huffed and snatched up her hands. "Look, we're together again. And this might be our best chance to get away. I've got the money now—we could go anywhere we want, find you a new university, a new library."

Aziraphale closed her eyes tight. "Crowley, please. I'm not… I can't just leave. I'm a Principality! The country, these people… I can't let them down."

Crowley growled and shoved himself to his feet. He paced an anxious circle on the ravine floor for a moment, fingers tight in his hair, before he blew out a heavy breath and stomped back over to her.

"All right, but the _moment_ things start looking like they're going to go pear-shaped, send word. Or run away. Wherever you are, I'll come to you—and then we can go off together." He held out a hand to help her up.

Aziraphale beamed at him and took the proffered hand. As soon as she was upright, she used the momentum to throw herself into his arms. Crowley caught her with a small _oof_ and held her tight.

"This time, I will come for _you_ ," she promised.

Another round of horns sounded, much closer this time, and they both flinched, casting wary eyes up at the top edge of the ravine.

Crowley swore under his breath, and Aziraphale couldn't help but share the sentiment. The rescue party was closing in, fast. She didn't think she would be able to make it back up the sides of the ravine in these shoes to head them off, either, so that Crowley could make his escape. She cast wild eyes around them, searching out landmarks, and thought back to the maps of Guilder she'd pored over during her research.

"I think this is the Great Eastern Ravine," she said.

Crowley looked around too and then consulted the position of the sun. "Yeah, that sounds right. What are you thinking?"

Aziraphale grabbed his hand, faced them north, and began a ground-eating jog along the bottom of the ravine floor. "We need to lose them, at least for a little while. And I know the perfect place."

Crowley jogged along silently beside her for a long moment before squawking, "You don't mean to take us into the Fire Swamp?"

"I've studied the traps," she panted. "We'll be perfectly safe."

"We'll never survive," Crowley grumbled.

"Nonsense!" she huffed out brightly. "You're only saying that because no one ever has!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Spoilery content warnings for this chapter:** Ligur's body is discovered and discussed in non-graphic terms by Gabriel, Uriel, and Michael.


End file.
